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Frontispiece 


HE LIFTED THE RIFLE CLEAR 









































































































































































/ 


LITTLE 

BOY HEROES OF 
FRANCE 


A Book of the Deeds of Valor of the Sturdy 
Little Patriots of France During the 
Great War 

By 

RUTH ROYCE 


PHILADELPHIA 

HENRY ALTEMUS COMPANY 



Copyright, 1921, by Howard E. Altemus. 



&PR -9 IS21 


0> Cl. A 614 0 4 5 




f 


CONTENTS 


Chapter Page 

I. “Jack the Giant Killer”.11 

II. Charlot of the Marne. 15 

III. The Little Lorrainian Spy_ 28 

IV. Seven Soldiers and a Load of 

Hay.42 


V. The Boy Who Wore a Monocle . 57 

VI. Alexandre the Courageous ... 75 

VII. The Little Scout of Cambrai 


Wood. 95 

VIII. Pierre the Pepper. 122 

IX. The Little Runner of Verdun. 137 
X. Philippe, the Argonne Hero .. .168 
XI. Conclusion. 188 












* 4 * tfL • i 


. 













































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AUTHOB’S PKEFACE 


The stories of deeds of valor of Little 
Boy Heroes of France, as recorded in this 
volume, have been selected with extreme 
care, and the author regards as authentic 
the sources from which the incidents have 
been obtained. Names of persons and 
places have, in most instances, been changed, 
but the stories, as they came to the author, 
have been faithfully set down here, and are 
thus offered to the liberty-loving lads of 
America. 


Buth Boyce. 



INTRODUCTION 


The Little Boy Heroes of France! 

There are none greater, none who reflect 
the glory of France more splendidly, than 
do these little men, most of them reared 
amidst humble surroundings, but whose 
hearts are true and whose deeds are noble. 
Each and every one of them carries in his 
heart the spirit that has made France great 
—that has enabled her to fight on to victory 
in the cause of human liberty—and hun¬ 
dreds, perhaps thousands, of them have 
given up their lives rather than betray their 
beloved France to the cruel Germans. 

This wonderful spirit in the children of 
France is well exemplified in an incident 
that is said to have occurred at the battle 
of Yerdun, when a French lad, who had been 
carrying water to the wounded on the battle¬ 
field, was struck by an exploding shell and 
his right leg torn away. He was removed 


7 


INTRODUCTION 


to a field emergency station, where the sur¬ 
geon who was attending him expressed his 
deep sympathy for the little sufferer. 

“I am so sorry, my little man,” he said, 
“that you have lost your leg.” 

“Lost it? I have not lost it, my Doctor, 
I have given it to France,” was the reply of 
this sturdy little hero, and in these words 
did he reveal the spirit and the love and 
pride of country that have made the chil¬ 
dren of France beloved of all the civilized 
world. 

The deeds of heroism of these devoted 
French boys, many mere children, as set 
down in this volume, are but a few among 
many. There are other, many other, stories 
of individual heroism that, alas, never will 
be told, for the child actors in these human 
tragedies of the great world war are resting 
under the soil of beautiful France. 

Standing, as many of them have stood, 
looking death in the face, and smiling into 
that face without so much as the quiver of a 
muscle or the rapid pulsation of the heart, 

8 


INTRODUCTION 


these little soldiers of France have met their 
doom, proud and happy that they were privi¬ 
leged to die for the country that they loved 
so well. Their bravery and spirit of self- 
sacrifice are the one beautiful spot in the 
savage warfare of the German military 
power. It is a shining lesson to us and 
teaches us that, unless we, with a smile on 
our lips, are willing to give our lives for our 
country, we do not love it as these little men 
loved the country for which they offered and, 
in many instances, gave up their lives. 


9 


LITTLE BOY HEROES 
OF FRANCE 


CHAPTEK I 


“jack the giant killer” 

He was big and thin and bony, but as 
supple and quick as a cat, was Sergeant 
Bomber Haynes, U. S. A., fresh from the 
trenches of France. His voice, when he let 
it out, was not unlike the distant boom of a 
cannon, but it was the fierce expression that 
he could bring to his face that made all 
shiver with apprehension who beheld him. 

This was especially true of the college 
students at Lennox, whom Bomber Haynes 
had been sent over to teach the gentle art of 
hurling deadly bombs, and it was when he 


11 





LITTLE BOY HEROES OF FRANCE 


was instructing that he always wore what 
the students called “his battle face/’ a face 
calculated to strike terror to enemy and 
friend alike. It already had struck terror 
to many Germans when he charged down on 
them, hurling bombs loaded with high ex¬ 
plosive. 

While the college men stood in real awe of 
the soldier-bomber, the children of the little 
college town actually adored the big, lean 
bomb-thrower, and, with all his apparent 
fierceness, the sergeant loved every one of 
them. Children were the joy of his life, 
and, with the quick instinct of childhood, 
they read his heart aright. Therefore 
Bomber Haynes’ appearance was at all 
times the signal for joyous outbursts on the 
part of the children, and shouts of “Here 
comes Jack the Giant Killer!” 

Bomber Haynes was living on a ranch in 
a far western town when the war started in 
1914. He at once enlisted in a Canadian 
regiment, in which he served until the 
United States entered the war, whereupon 

12 


“JACK THE GIANT KILLEB” 


he was transferred to a New York regiment, 
in which he had served gloriously ever 
since. Besides his teaching at the college 
he had organized the boys of the town 
into bombing squads, and, with potatoes as 
weapons, had taught them how to throw 
bombs and hit the mark. At the rear of 
the village schoolhouse trenches had been 
dug under his direction, and many a fierce 
battle had been waged there between the 
rival armies, into which the boys of Lennox 
entered with the true American spirit. 

“You fellows are just like the little 
Frenchmen,” declared Bomber Haynes one 
afternoon after he had conducted a hot 
bombing expedition with his young friends. 

“Tell us about them,” died little Abe 
Skinner, who, despite his diminutive size, 
was the leader of one of the armies of potato 
bombers. 

Bomber Haynes reflected a moment. 

“I will do that. Yes, I will tell you. Sit 
down, all of you, and be at rest while I ‘carry 
on,’ and you shall hear a story of a brave 

13 


LITTLE BOY HEROES OF FRANCE 


little man, and later on I will tell you of 
other brave little Frenchmen. I wish to ex¬ 
plain that some of these stories have come 
to me from the lips of persons who knew 
them to be true; other stories I know at first 
hand. Let me see, where shall I begin? I 
know how to fight the Germans better than 
I know how to tell stories. Ah! I have it. 
Now at rest/’ he commanded, fixing his gaze 
on his youthful friends and clearing his 
throat. “Listen to the tale of the deeds of 
heroism of a little soldier of France.” 

“All right, let’s go,” urged Abe Skinner, 
in the words of the American soldiers in the 
front line trench when the moment has ar¬ 
rived for them to go over the top and charge 
the German trenches. 


14 


CHAPTER II 


CHARLOT OF THE MARNE 


“Charlot (pronounced Charlo) was be¬ 
lieved to be not more than thirteen years of 
age. He was small and slight and one of 
the best known of the newsboys of Paris. 
He was known on the boulevards as the Bus 
Boy because he devoted his business hours 
to selling papers to passengers on the Paris 
omnibuses, and there his shrill voice might 
be heard calling out his wares, ‘le Matin, le 
Journal/ and when his keen eyes discovered 
an American on top of a bus his cry would 
change to 6 ’Ere’s yer New York papers, all 
about America coming over to fight the 
BochesP He was a live little merchant, 
was Chariot. 

“I must explain to you about those omni¬ 
buses. They are somewhat like the stages 

15 




LITTLE BOY HEROES OF FRANCE 


one sees on Fifth Avenue in New York, built 
with two decks, so that passengers may sit 
on top and view the scenery. Newsboys in 
Paris are not allowed to go on these omni¬ 
buses to sell their papers, but Chariot solved 
the problem that, I understand, had bothered 
all the newsboys of the beautiful French city. 
He got a long pole. At the top he fastened a 
light board with niches in it into which he 
stuck his papers so that the headlines might 
be easily read. On the top of the board was 
a little tin cup. Chariot would run along 
beside the bus and thrust his pole up above 
the top of it, while the vehicle was in motion, 
and call out his papers. Passengers would 
pick out the paper they wished and drop a 
coin in the tin cup, whereupon Chariot 
would run to another bus and repeat the 
performance. 

“One day the American troops came to 
Paris. They were different from the tour¬ 
ists that Chariot was familiar with, being 
big, lean, square-jawed fellows with smiling, 
good-natured faces, always with a cheerful 


16 


CHARLOT OF THE MARNE 


word on their lips for the little newsboy. 
And how they did buy papers! Though in 
most instances they paid him twice what he 
asked for his papers, he would have been 
willing to sell his wares to them for half 
the price that others paid. Now and then 
American soldiers would throw coins to him 
as they gazed down into his impish up¬ 
turned face. 

“ ‘Not from my beloved Americans/ Char¬ 
iot would cry, shaking his head with empha¬ 
sis and tossing the gifts back to the upper 
deck of the bus. He refused their gifts in¬ 
variably, whereas in the old days he would 
take all he could get from the tourists and 
beg for more. 

“Troops came and went, but it was al¬ 
ways the same. They were the same lov¬ 
able, manly fellows, and Chariot grew to 
love them as he did the poilus of his beloved 
France. Every day he read his newspapers 
eagerly, searching for accounts of the do¬ 
ings of his friends the Americans. Then 
one day Chariot disappeared from the boule- 

2 —Little Boy Heroes of France. -(iy 


LITTLE BOY HEROES OF FRANCE 


yards of Paris. It was more than a week 
later when, in the billets back of the lines at 
the Marne, a diminutive figure, bent under 
the weight of a huge bundle of newspapers 
on his back, staggered in among the troops 
and a shrill, familiar voice cried out, ‘ ’Ere’s 
yer New York papers! All the Americans 
coming over to fight the Boches !’ 

“It was Chariot. Many of the soldiers 
recognized his little impish face, but it was 
the papers that interested them most. 

“ Row much?’ they demanded. 

“ ‘Ten sous to my beloved Americans.’ 

“ ‘Robber!’ accused a doughboy laugh¬ 
ingly. 

“ ‘You shall see that Chariot is no robber, 
my beloved American. You shall see,’ re¬ 
turned the little Frenchman. 

“His papers were all bought up in a few 
minutes, leaving him in j)ossession of a nice 
little sum of money. How the boy got there 
none knew, but from his appearance when 
he first reached the rest billets it was plain 
that he had walked a long distance. Nor 


18 


CHARLOT OF THE MARNE 


did any one know how lie had managed to 
obtain a pass to enter the American lines. 
Chariot had not been a newsboy in Paris 
without learning how to get what he wanted, 
and to get it quickly. Some of the younger 
American officers looked upon him with sus¬ 
picion. His ready tongue and keen face led 
them to wonder if he were not another Ger¬ 
man spy. The soldiers, however, knew bet¬ 
ter, and not a man of them who would not 
stand up for the French boy. 

“Again Chariot disappeared, this time 
from the American camp, but he was not 
gone long, and upon his return he had more 
papers, papers that plainly had been handled 
and read by others. These he sold and pock¬ 
eted more money. After selling out he 
gathered up all the papers he could find and 
sold them over again, after which he disap¬ 
peared once more. One day he sauntered 
into camp just as a large body of troops was 
being moved forward. Some big movement 
was on foot, as his keen eyes readily dis¬ 
covered, though he made no comment, but he 

19 


LITTLE BOY HEROES OF FRANCE 


nodded with satisfaction. During the day 
the boy made himself useful about the camp 
and, when darkness fell and the soldiers be¬ 
gan moving forward through communicat¬ 
ing trenches on their way to the front lines, 
many of them never to come back, he hurried 
to the rear. He returned later in the eve¬ 
ning with a heavy pack on his back. It was 
not newspapers that Chariot carried, though 
it was only himself, and possibly the com¬ 
manding officer of a certain unit, who knew 
what was in that pack. 

“Finally, when he discovered an oppor¬ 
tunity, the little newsboy sought to enter a 
communicating trench with the intention of 
making his way to the front. He was 
stopped by a sentry and sternly turned 
back. 

“ ‘I am permitted to go, my American/ in¬ 
sisted Chariot. 

“ ‘Who permitted you?’ demanded the 
sentry. ‘Show me your permit/ 

“ ‘I do not know his name. The officer 
told me it would be all right and— ? 

20 


CHAKLOT OF THE MARNE 


“‘Go away with you. Out there is no 
place for children.’ Then in a more kindly 
tone the sentry, leaning over, whispered: 
‘Kid, there is going to be a big scrap out 
there in No Man’s Land to-night. You go 
back where you will be safe. Only men are 
wanted out there this night.’ 

“ ‘Chariot is a man, too. He will show 
you that he is a man even if he is little,’ 
answered the lad resolutely, brushing a 
hand across his face, for the tears had 
sprung to his eyes. He turned away with¬ 
out another word and sat down to think, 
now and then narrowly observing the sentry. 
Suddenly Chariot realized that the sentry 
had for some reason stepped into the com¬ 
municating trench. The little fellow was 
up in a twinkling and, shouldering his pack, 
stole away into the darkness in the direction 
of the front lines. He dared not try to enter 
the communicating trench, but walked boldly 
on top, across the fields, now and then 
stumbling and falling into deep shell holes, 
but steadily plodding on toward the place 


21 


LITTLE BOY HEROES OF FRANCE 


where men were waiting breathlessly for 
the word of their commanding officers to go 
over the top. 

“No one was up there to interfere with 
him, though an occasional shell burst near 
him. Every time he heard one of these com¬ 
ing the little newsboy would throw himself 
flat on the ground just as he had seen the sol¬ 
diers do in like circumstances. There he 
would lie while the air was filled with dirt 
and stones thrown up by the explosion of 
the shell, shaking a brown little fist angrily 
toward the German lines. At last he found 
himself just in the rear of the American first- 
line trench, having successfully made his 
way over the rear trenches without being dis¬ 
covered by the soldiers from across the sea. 

“At last the word to go over the top was 
given by the officers in the front-line trench. 
Still Chariot lay motionless in a shell-hole. 
He could hear the men leaving the trench 
ahead of him, and, a few minutes later, those 
from the rear trenches were running past 
him on their way to the front. 

22 


CHARLOT OF THE MARNE 


“All at once it seemed to little Chariot as 
if the world were blowing up. Star-shells 
burst high in the air, big guns on both sides 
opened up, machine-guns began their rat- 
tat-tat, and sharp bursts of flame high in 
the air showed where shells were exploding 
near some venturesome airship. The little 
Frenchman gazed in awe, though with no 
fear in his heart. 

“ ‘It is time for Chariot to go/ he decided 
suddenly. ‘They shall not send him back, 
nor will they, for he will show his beloved 
Americans that he too is a man !’ 

“Shouldering his pack, Chariot slid down 
into the front-line trench and, clambering 
out on the other side, made his way slowly 
over the uneven ground in No Man’s Land, 
which was now swept by a perfect storm of 
bullets. He gave these no heed, but his 
little heart beat faster as he saw a figure 
lying on the ground ahead of him. The boy 
crept up and called softly to the motionless 
figure, but there was no response, and there 
was a sob in little Chariot’s throat as he 


23 


LITTLE BOY HEBOES OF FRANCE 


staggered to his feet and pressed on toward 
the front. The lad pricked up his ears when 
he heard some one moaning just ahead of 
him, and hurried on in search of the owner 
of the voice. What he found was a wounded 
American soldier. 

“Chariot gave him a drink of water, then 
from his pack selected a bar of cholocate and 
a package of gum, which he thrust into the 
hands of the wounded man. 

“ ‘Thanks, little pard,’ breathed the sol¬ 
dier gratefully. ‘These things will take my 
mind from my troubles while I am waiting 
for the stretcher-bearers. I am wounded in 
both legs and have a piece of shrapnel in my 
shoulder. Otherwise Fm all right.’ 

“Chariot ran back, and soon returned 
with two stretcher-bearers. Then he strug¬ 
gled on, pausing now and then to give water 
to a wounded soldier, always pressing into 
the soldier’s hand a bar of chocolate and a 
package of gum. It was with these things 
that his heavy pack was loaded, bought with 
the profits he had made by selling papers to 


24 


CHAELOT OF THE MAENE 


the soldiers, and he was giving his profits, 
as well as his slender capital, back to the 
brave men from across the sea who had 
come to defend his beloved France. 

“All night long did little Chariot work 
among the wounded soldiers, giving water 
where it was begged for, and distributing 
gum and chocolate with loving hands. 
Many an American soldier blessed the little 
Frenchman that night. Long before morn¬ 
ing Chariot’s supply of gum and chocolate 
was exhausted, but there was plenty of work 
for him to do. The boy gathered up all the 
canteens he could find, and, running back, 
filled them with water and returned to the 
battlefield. This he did many times, con¬ 
tinuing his work of mercy on into the day of 
terrible fighting, without rest and through 
the killing heat, giving water, searching out 
stretcher-bearers whom he led to grievously 
wounded men, doing little deeds of mercy 
and heroism. For three days and two 
nights did the little newsboy of the Paris 
boulevards continue his noble work. 


25 


LITTLE BOY HEROES OF FRANCE 


“It was on the evening of the third day, 
while he was giving water to a wounded sol¬ 
dier, that little Chariot’s work of mercy 
came to an end. A shell exploded close at 
hand while he was holding a canteen to the 
lips of a dying American. The brave little 
Frenchman fell forward on his face and 
rolled over on his back beside the man he 
had been aiding, and there a fighting chap¬ 
lain found them half an hour later. The 
soldier was dead; Chariot lay as he had 
fallen, but without uttering a single moan. 
His bright little eyes looked up into those 
of the chaplain. 

“ ‘Padre, Chariot is going away,’ he said 
weakly. 

“ ‘Yes, my son. Many brave fellows have 
gone before you this day.’ 

“ ‘My brave poilus, my brave Americans/ 
murmured the lad. ‘Padre, tell my brave 
Americans that Chariot did the best he 
could, that all the money he made from the 
papers he gave back to them in chocolate 
and gum.’ 


26 


CHARLOT OF THE MARNE 


“ ‘Yes, my noble lad. You have proved 
yourself as much a hero as if you had been 
fighting the Germans out there by the wood, 
and whose bullets we now hear about us.’ 

“ ‘Padre, Chariot’s eyes see but faintly. 
Take me in your arms, Padre, just as my 
mother used to do. Ah, that is well. Padre, 
tell them that little Chariot did not fear to 
die and that, though they would not let him 
be a soldier, he died like a soldier. I—’ 

“The little fellow’s voice trailed off into a 
whisper and his slender form grew limp. 
All at once a tremor ran through his little 
frame, his eyes opened widely. 

“ ‘Vive la France! Vive l’America,’ he 
cried. 

“And thus, my dear little friends, died a 
boy hero of France.” 


27 


CHAPTEK III 


THE LITTLE LORRAINIAN SPY 


Abe Skinner, when the sergeant joined 
them on the following afternoon, declared 
that, if the Germans were shooting at him, 
he wouldn’t have any appetite for chocolate 
and gum, and that those doughboys over in 
France must have queer appetites. 

Bomber Haynes explained that a chew of 
gum helped to keep the minds of the men 
from their pain and really was a great help 
in steadying them when wounded, as well as 
when they were in action. 

“Tell us some more stories about other 
fellows who were like the brave little Char¬ 
iot,” urged Abe. “He was brave, all right, 
though if I were going out to fight the Boches 
I should want to carry a gun, or a pocket full 
of bombs, instead of a bag of gum and choco- 


28 




THE LITTLE LORRAINIAN SPY 


late on my back. What a weapon to fight 
with! Woof!” 

Bomber Haynes grinned appreciatively 
and admitted that he felt very much as his 
young friend did on that subject. 

“This time,” he began, “I will tell you of a 
brave little boy of France who was a spy 
because he had to be. The Germans made 
him a spy, but he outwitted them and— 
But wait until we get to the story of how 
his spying ended. It would not do for me to 
tell you the ending and then the beginning. 
Ahem! His name was Louis and he was a 
mere child in years. 

“With his grandmother, Louis lived in the 
village of Touraille in Lorraine, when the 
Germans swept down and captured the town 
from the French. That was before the 
American troops got there. The Germans, 
after taking the village, shot the young men 
and sent the older men back to work in the 
fields, leaving only the women and children 
to do the work of the village, which was 
principally to feed the hated Germans. 

29 


LITTLE BOY HEROES OF FRANCE 


“Louis loved his grandmother very much, 
as naturally she did him, and he was sad 
when one day a German captain ordered 
him to go on a mission to the French lines, 
then hut a few miles to the westward of 
Touraille. 

“ ‘You will/ said the German captain 
sternly, ‘gather some food—some vegetables 
from the fields—and take them with you to 
give to the officers in the French lines, and 
you will stay there until you have learned 
the exact location of their guns, their artil¬ 
lery, then you will return to us. Do you 
understand?’ 

“ ‘Louis understands only too well, Herr 
Captain. He understands that you would 
make him a spy against his own beloved 
France. Louis would die before he would 
do so dastardly a thing.’ 

“The German captain laughed harshly. 

“ ‘Listen,’ he commanded. ‘Unless you 
do as you are ordered by me your beloved 
grandmother shall be stood up before a fir¬ 
ing squad and be shot, and you shall witness 


30 


THE LITTLE LORRAINIAN SPY 


the glorious deed. What say you now, my 
brave little Frenchman?’ sneered the Hun 
captain. 

“ ‘I will do your bidding, and may the good 
Father in heaven forgive,’ murmured the 
unhappy boy. ‘Tell me what it is that you 
wish.’ 

“ ‘I have already told you. The French 
artillery is causing us a great deal of trouble 
and we have not been able to locate their 
guns. We are a small force here and we 
have no airplanes to give us assistance. 
You will be the eyes of our little army 
here. Ah, it is fine that it should be a 
Frenchman who spies on his own! You 
will give your French no hint of the size 
of our force nor of anything about us, un¬ 
less you wish to tell them we are larger 
than we really are. You, being French, 
will know how to lie to them so that no 
harm may come to us. The French ever 
show glib tongues.’ 

“ ‘Yes, but not lying tongues like the 
Boche,’ retorted Louis. 

31 


LITTLE BOY HEROES OF FRANCE 


“ ‘Silence V roared the German officer. 
‘Listen further. If you divulge the slightest 
word that will give the French information 
of our position I shall know it, and when you 
return—your grandmother will pay the price 
of your dishonor. You will return here to¬ 
night before dark. Remember the penalty 
if you fail.’ 

“Without delay the lad started off across 
the fields in the direction of the French lines. 
He carried with him a nice fat chicken that 
he had captured, and with this he soon had 
an armful of vegetables that he well knew 
his countrymen would be glad to get. Early 
in the forenoon Louis came upon a French 
sentry and was halted. 

“‘Halt! What are you doing here?’ 

“ ‘I come to bring you food. We are pris¬ 
oners over there in the Boche lines at Tou- 
raille, I and my grandmother, but they are 
stupid fellows. It is easy to fool them. I 
can go and come as I choose. Here is a 
chicken for you. I shall come every day or 
so and bring you things/ 


32 


THE LITTLE LORRAINIAN SPY 


“ ‘You are a real Frenchman/ answered 
the sentry glowingly. ‘You may go where 
you will, for there are other French children 
and women within our lines.’ 

“Meeting a lieutenant, who eyed him 
sharply, Louis offered the officer some of the 
vegetables, which the lieutenant accepted, 
and then questioned Louis as had the sentry, 
only he was more definite in his questioning 
as to the location of the German artillery 
than the sentry had been. These questions 
Louis skillfully dodged, for he knew that if 
he gave the desired information the French 
would immediately begin shelling the Ger¬ 
mans, and then the German captain would 
know that Louis had played him false, which 
meant death to the boy’s grandmother. 

“Louis wandered all about in the French 
lines, locating pretty much all of the French 
artillery, making note in his mind of dis¬ 
tances and locations so that he might not 
forget them. Late in the afternoon he 
started back. 

“Reaching the village of Touraille in 

3 —Little Boy Heroes of France. 


LITTLE BOY HEROES OF FRANCE 


safety the lad proceeded directly to the office 
of the German captain. 

“ ‘Well?’ demanded the German officer 
sharply. ‘What have you learned?’ 

“ ‘Too much for a Boche to know/ replied 
the lad boldly. 

“ ‘Tell me what you have learned or the 
penalty shall be on your own head.’ 

“ ‘I shall tell.’ Long since Louis had 
made his plans and they were plans that he 
did not believe could fail. ‘The heaviest 
battery of their guns is situated in a grove 
about a hundred meters from the old stone 
mill. That is the one that I think is giving 
you the most trouble, Herr Captain. The 
lighter guns are here on this map I made for 
you after I left the French camp. Now am 
I and my grandmother to rest in peace?’ 

“ ‘Until the day after to-morrow. You 
shall then go again, for by then they will 
have moved their artillery after finding that 
we have their range so closely. You have 
done well.’ 

“After having questioned the boy closely, 
34 


THE LITTLE LORRALNTAN SPY 


the German captain dismissed him and 
Louis hurried home to his grandmother, but 
he did not tell her what he had been doing or 
where he had been. He decided that it were 
better to keep his business to himself. 

“That night the German artillery opened 
up, using the ranges that Louis had given 
them, but of course they did not know 
whether or not they had put any of the 
French artillery out of commission. The 
French replied about as they had been do¬ 
ing, but no better, proving to the German 
captain that Louis had not given the French 
any information about the positions of the 
German guns. 

“On the second day Louis was again 
started on his way, and this time he had two 
chickens, one for the sentry and one for the 
lieutenant, whose name and company he had 
taken the precaution of getting on his first 
visit. 

“ ‘How are the Roches shooting V ques¬ 
tioned the lad of the sentry after handing 
over a chicken to him. 


35 


LITTLE BOY HEROES OF FRANCE 


“ ‘Badly. Their shells are falling all of a 
hundred meters from our batteries of sev¬ 
enty-sevens, and they held the same range 
all night. It was the same with their shoot¬ 
ing at our lighter batteries.’ 

“ ‘The Boches ever were poor shooters,’ 
observed Louis carelessly, starting to go on 
to the camp. 

“As on the former occasion, the French 
boy delivered one of the chickens to the 
sentry and the other to the lieutenant, and 
vegetables to a few of the privates, for 
his stock was too small to go far. While in 
camp he again took careful note of the posi¬ 
tions of the French guns and chuckled as he 
noted how badly the Germans had been 
shooting through the night. Louis went 
away with fresh figures in his head and re¬ 
ported to the Herr Captain on the new posi¬ 
tion of the French guns. 

“On his third visit to the French lines 
something new developed. A commanding 
officer was commenting on the shooting of 
the German guns. The fact that every time 

36 


THE LITTLE LOKKAINIAN SPY 


the French changed the positions of their 
batteries the Germans corrected their range, 
indicated that the Huns were getting infor¬ 
mation from the French side. 

“ ‘There is a young French boy who comes 
to our lines frequently with vegetables and 
other things/ observed an intelligence 
officer. ‘I just heard to-day that he comes 
from Touraille.’ 

“ ‘A spy V fairly exploded the command¬ 
ing officer, a captain. ‘When he comes 
again place him under arrest! Find out 
who permitted him to enter our lines. I 
should have been informed of this/ 

“ ‘I think the boy is all right/ spoke up 
the young lieutenant to whom Louis had 
given the chicken, he having come in during 
the latter part of the captain’s conversation 
with his intelligence officer. ‘He is in the 
camp now. I think I can find him.’ 

“ ‘Fetch him here at once!’ commanded 
the captain. 

“Louis soon entered the commander’s 
headquarters, led by the lieutenant to whom 

37 


LITTLE BOY HEROES OF FRANCE 


lie had given the chicken, and looking not a 
hit frightened over the fact that he was un¬ 
der arrest. 

“ T found him asking questions about 
our batteries/ announced the lieutenant, 
frowning. 

“ ‘Ah! A spy P cried the captain, fixing a 
stern gaze on the face of the little French¬ 
man. 

“Louis nodded. 

“ ‘Spying on the French for the Germans, 
eh?’ 

“ ‘It is true,’ answered Louis sadly. 

“ ‘You admit it. Unhappy boy—for this 
you shall be shot. To think that a French¬ 
man could fall so low. Bah!’ 

“ ‘But, my officer,’ begged the lad, now 
thoroughly aroused, ‘the Boches have not hit 
anything. Their range has ever been far to 
one side or the other of the mark.’ 

“ ‘That is also true,’ replied the captain, 
searching the face of the little spy before 
him and beginning to wonder. ‘Tell me 
what you have in mind, but be brief.’ 


38 


THE LITTLE LORRAINIAN SPY 


“Louis thereupon explained how the Ger¬ 
man officer had ordered him to go to the 
French lines and keep the Boches informed 
as to the positions of the French guns. If 
the hoy failed it would he at the forfeit of 
the life of his grandmother, who lived in 
yonder village. 

“ ‘My Captain, I gave the Boches the range 
each time, hut it was not the true range. 
You will remember that yesterday it was a 
hundred meters to the north of the heavies; 
to-day it is the same distance to the south. 
Not one Boche shell has reached its mark. 
I am a Frenchman/ added the little man, 
rising to his full height and looking the 
commanding officer squarely in the eyes. 
‘Sooner would I die than hetray my beloved 
France, even to save the life of my beloved 
grandmother. That is all I can say, sir.’ 

“The captain sprang up and, embracing 
the little Frenchman, kissed him on both 
cheeks. 

“ ‘My brave boy! You are indeed a true 
Frenchman. So it is you who are respon- 

39 


LITTLE BOY HEROES OF FRANCE 


sible for the clumsy shooting of the Huns in 
these few days? It is worthy of the 
strategy of a great general. Yet, what shall 
you do now?’ 

“ ‘I must return else they will shoot my 
grandmother. But before I go I will give 
you the positions of all the Herman bat¬ 
teries, that you may shell them out. Fear 
not for us, but kill the Boches—leave not a 
man of them. Ah, how I loathe, how I hate 
the cowardly mob, every man of it! Wait, 
and I will p-rove that what I say is true. Ho 
you see yonder group of trees? I will give 
the Huns that group of trees as the position 
of your heavy artillery to-day. Two hours 
after I have left your lines you shall see the 
German shells falling there. It is then, my 
Captain, that you will open up on them, fir¬ 
ing at the enemy positions that I have given 
to you.’ 

“ Wes, but what will happen to you, my 
boy?’ 

“ ‘Louis and his grandmother will not be 
in the village then. May I go, my Captain?’ 

40 


THE LITTLE LORRAINIAN SPY 


“ ‘Yes, yes, and may the Father watch 
over you, my brave little Frenchman/ re¬ 
plied the captain feelingly. 

“Almost exactly two hours later the Ger¬ 
man shells began falling among the trees 
indicated by the little spy, and it was then 
that the French guns opened up, and the fire 
of the latter soon wiped out the main bat¬ 
teries of the enemy. But what of little Louis 
and his much-loved grandmother? None 
knew what became of them until several 
days later, after the French had taken the 
village of Touraille. Then the captain 
learned that shortly after it became appar¬ 
ent that the French had the exact range of 
the German guns, the brave little Louis and 
his grandmother were taken out and stood 
up before a firing squad. 

“That is the spirit, boys, that we boys of 
America should have, nor are we true Amer¬ 
icans unless we are prepared to give all that 
we have, to die with a smile on our lips for 
the great country that we all love so well.” 


CHAPTER IV 


SEVEN SOLDIERS AND A LOAD OF HAY 


“Those French youngsters are quick¬ 
witted, too, boys,” resumed Bomber Haynes 
at his next recital a few days later, for, up to 
that time, he had been too busy with his 
work at the college to continue his stories of 
the Boy Heroes of France. 

“On my way down here to-day I was think¬ 
ing of an incident that occurred not far from 
the River Somme when the allied armies 
were making their big drive shortly after 
they got the Huns on the run. Julien was 
the name of the little French boy concerned 
in it. He was about your age and build, 
Abe, and wore wooden shoes and had spent 
most of his few years working hard on his 
father’s farm. His features were heavy, 
but his eyes were bright with intelligence, 

42 




SEVEN SOLDIERS AND ALOAD OF HAY! 


for little Julien had read, and in tlie winter 
he went to school with the firm purpose of 
learning all he could. 

“Julien lived with his parents in the little 
French village of Beauville, hard by the 
River Somme, about which some of the most 
desperate battles of the war have been 
waged. Their farmhouse was situated on 
the outskirts of the village, the latter, at the 
time of which I speak, being in the hands of 
the Germans, because they had just driven 
a small French detachment out of the place. 

“In taking Beauville, the Germans suc¬ 
ceeded in cutting off several small groups of 
French soldiers. Many of these were shot 
in attempting to escape, others were made 
prisoners, but one group succeeded in evad¬ 
ing the Huns and hiding in the village. 
There was not one of those loyal French 
peasants who would not have put his own 
life in jeopardy to save the beloved poilus 
had be been given the opportunity; but so 
successfully had the Frenchmen hidden 
themselves that only one person in the vil- 

43 


LITTLE BOY HEROES OF FRANCE 


lage knew where they were. That person 
was the wooden-faced Julien. He had seen 
them slink into his father’s barn, where 
much hay had been stored. 

“Julien kept away from the barn, fearing 
that to be seen near it might arouse the sus¬ 
picion of the Germans. But he kept an eye 
on it from a distance, and, when finally the 
Huns reached the building and began to 
search it for the missing Frenchmen, he had 
all he could do to keep himself from crying 
out, ‘They are not there V 

“Finally the Germans went away to 
search other places, whereupon Julien went 
away too, not even going to feed the horses 
that were neighing for their midday meal. 
He dared not go near the place just yet. 

“As the day drew to a close he went whis¬ 
tling to the building and led his father’s 
horses out to the trough for water, all the 
time observed narrowly by a German sentry 
near by. After returning the animals to the 
stable, he climbed up to the haymow and be¬ 
gan throwing down hay for the horses. 


44 


SEVEN SOLDIEES AND ALOAD OF HAY 


u ‘My beloved poilus,’ lie called softly. 
There was no reply. ‘I know yon are here. 
I am Julien, whose father owns the barn. 
You can speak, for there are no Boches near. 
One is out yonder about three hundred 
meters away, wondering why I am so long 
in the barn.’ 

“ What do you want?’ demanded a muf¬ 
fled voice from the depths of the haymow. 

“ To save you when the right time comes,’ 
answered the boy promptly. 

“ ‘How? The Huns will get us if we so 
much as show our faces.’ 

“ ‘Of course they will. The answer is 
simple—do not show your faces. Listen! 
After darkness has fallen Julien will come 
back, if the way is clear, and bring you food.’ 

“It was late that evening when he re¬ 
turned to the barn with food for the hiding 
soldiers, slinking past the sentry when the 
latter’s back was turned toward him. 
Julien carried the food to the haymow and 
called softly. There was a slight move¬ 
ment in the hay. 


45 


LITTLE BOY HEROES OF FRANCE 


“ ‘Eat, but leave no crumbs. I bave 
brought bread and cheese and a bottle of 
water. It is the best I could do. To-mor¬ 
row you may get nothing, though I shall try 
to give you something. If I come into the 
barn do not speak unless I first call to you/ 

“With that Julien slipped out at the rear 
of the barn and cautiously made his way to 
the cottage where he lived. His father, with 
other able-bodied men of the village, had 
been taken by the Germans and compelled 
to work at building up defenses and digging 
trenches, but so long as his father obeyed 
orders, Julien did not believe any harm 
could come to him. 

“All night the guns boomed and the sound 
of them lulled the little patriot to sleep. On 
the following morning Julien was up early 
and on his way to the barn to feed his horses. 
There was a new sentry on duty in the 
vicinity of the barn. He entered while the 
boy was doing his chores, but Julien paid no 
attention to the presence of the German, 
and went about his work whistling. After 


46 


SEVEN SOLDIEKS AND ALOAD OF HAY 


finishing, he returned to his home for break¬ 
fast. 

“Now his plan was ready to be carried 
out. After breakfast he hitched up the 
horses and drove a wagon into the barn, 
where he began loading it from the hay¬ 
mow. 

“ ‘ Julien is going away now, but he will 
return/ he announced in a low tone after he 
had loaded on all the hay the wagon would 
hold. ‘Do not come out, but dig deeper into 
the hay and stay there/ 

“Having given this advice he drove from 
the barn and started away, whistling. 

“‘Halt! Where are you going?’ de¬ 
manded the sentry, pointing his rifle toward 
the boy on the load of hay. 

“ ‘I am taking the hay where the French 
shells will not burn it up. If the hay burns 
there will be none for the horses this winter 
and they will die of hunger/ was the ready 
response. 

“ ‘Where, I say?’ persisted the sentry. 

“ ‘Over by yonder wood, where I shall pile 


47 


LITTLE BOY HEKOES OF FRANCE 


it up. You can watch me from a distance 
to see that I do not go further/ 

“ ‘Ah! I see. You are taking the hay to 
the Frenchmen/ 

“ ‘No; Frenchmen do not eat hay like the 
animals. I shall do as I said, which you can 
readily see/ 

“ ‘Pass/ ordered the sentry. ‘If you try 
any tricks you will find a bullet following 
you/ 

“Further on Julien was again held up, 
this time by three German cavalrymen who 
were stationed in the road to stop and turn 
back all persons from the village. The lad 
explained to them, as he had to the sentry, 
where he was going and for what reason. 

“ ‘How do we know but that you have some 
Frenchmen hidden in the hay V demanded 
one. With that they dismounted and tipped 
over the wagon and its load, spilling Julien 
out and burying him under the hay. He 
scrambled out, tears of anger in his eyes, 
while the German cavalrymen shouted with 
laughter. 


48 



THE CAVALRYMEN DASHED 


PAST 


HIM 






































































































SEVEN SOLDIEES AND ALOAD OF HAY 


“ ‘None but a Boche would do a thing like 
that/ he flung at them. ‘Cowards, all of 
you!’ 

“The troopers laughed and jeered while 
the plucky boy laboriously piled his hay 
back on the wagon and quickly drove away, 
fearing they would again turn his load over. 
Beaching a point by the woods he pitched 
the hay off, piling it up and making a base 
for the stack that he proposed to build. 

“When Julien brought the second load, it 
was tipped over, like the first, by the cavalry¬ 
men, and so was the third, but by the time 
Julien arrived with the fourth load they had 
tired of their sport and turned their backs 
on him as he passed. 

“About the middle of the afternoon the 
troopers rode away, and a new sentry was 
on post near the barn when the boy got back. 
He offered to divide his bread and cheese 
with the sentry, which the latter eagerly ac¬ 
cepted. The next load went through with¬ 
out opposition, but still Julien kept steadily 
at his work, now and then passing a word to 

4 —Little Boy Heroes of France, qq 


LITTLE BOY HEROES OF FRANCE 


the French soldiers in the hay, who had dug 
themselves in deeper as he lowered the hay 
in the mow. The afternoon grew late, and 
the sentry had ceased to be interested in the 
boy’s work. The time to try out his great 
plan had arrived, and Julien knew it, so, 
driving into the barn, he pitched rapidly for 
a few moments then called softly. 

“ ‘Come out, one at a time, and jump into 
the wagon. Each man cover himself up 
with hay instantly when he gets aboard. 
Hurry while I watch through a crack in the 
barn.’ 

“Seven very much mussed poilus dug their 
way out one by one and hurriedly deposited 
themselves in the wagon, whereupon Julien 
grew active once more and began pitching 
hay on them from the mow. The men were 
near the top of the load so that but little 
hay was above them, and they were now able 
to breathe with less difficulty than when 
they were under the hay in the barn. 

“ ‘All ready now. Keep quiet and don’t 
be frightened,’ he admonished, clucking to 

50 


SEVEN SOLDIERS AND ALOAD OF HAY 


his horses and driving out of the barn. As 
he passed the sentry, whistling gaily, Julien 
waved a hand, to which the sentry responded 
in like manner, and the journey to the hay¬ 
stack in the field began, without haste and 
in the same manner that Julien had been 
‘carrying on’ all day. When well out of ear¬ 
shot of enemy troops, the boy gave the sol¬ 
diers their final orders. 

“ ‘One at a time will drop off under cover 
of a forkful of hay as I raise it from the 
load,’ he directed. ‘You will each roll on 
the ground from the side of the stack near¬ 
est to the woods, and then creep into the 
forest, making certain that you keep the 
stack between you and the village while you 
are doing it. Do you know how to get to the 
French lines?’ 

“They said that they did. 

“ ‘Then there is nothing more to be said/ 
continued Julien. ‘Follow a path you will 
find as you enter the forest, and go straight 
ahead about a hundred meters until you 
come to a tree on the right side of the path 


51 


LITTLE BOY HEROES OF FRANCE 


where the bark has been chipped off. There 
you will find a dozen rifles that once be¬ 
longed to a company of French soldiers. 
There are several belts of cartridges there, 
too, all under a brush heap that you will see 
near the same tree. They have been there 
for more than a week, but they are all right. 
I hid them myself, believing that one day 
they would be useful. Here we are. Now 
get ready and come out as I call for you. 

“A big forkful of hay was soon dropped 
over to the stack, and with it went a French 
soldier. It was then that little Julien made 
a startling discovery. A squad of German 
cavalrymen were galloping leisurely toward 
the haystack from the direction of the town, 
evidently with the intention of having a look 
at it. 

“ ‘Hurry! The Boches are coming V urged 
the French boy. He pitched rapidly now, 
and with every forkful out went a French 
soldier. For some reason the German cav¬ 
alrymen had increased their pace and came 
on at a swift gallop. The last poilu came 


52 


SEVEN SOLDIEES AND ALOAD OF HAY 


out when the Germans were about three hun¬ 
dred feet away, with Julien pitching hay as 
if his very life depended upon his efforts. 
Just at that instant, as Julien jerked up a 
forkful of hay, a French soldier’s cap flew 
up into the air and fell to the ground on the 
side from which the Germans were ap¬ 
proaching. 

“The German troopers saw and under¬ 
stood. Little Julien also saw and under¬ 
stood, and he did not hesitate a second, but 
dived head first for the haystack. Quick as 
he was a volley of shots from the troopers’ 
rifles whistled over him. Julien rolled 
down the side of the stack on the side next 
to the woods and ran into the forest, with 
the troopers coming after him and shooting 
as they came. 

“The lad ran on until he heard the riders 
come crashing in among the trees, where¬ 
upon he threw himself down behind a log to 
one side of the path, and a few seconds later 
the cavalrymen dashed past him. What he 
was hoping was that the soldiers whom he 

53 


LITTLE BOY HEROES OF FRANCE 


had aided to escape had by this time found 
the rifles, and that they would give the 
Boches a surprise. 

“ ‘All Boches are thick-heads,’ he mut¬ 
tered. ‘They haven’t even as good sense as 
a fly that will dodge the web of the spider. 
Ah!’ 

“Shots some distance ahead of him told 
him the Germans were firing and were 
being fired upon. The shooting was fast 
and furious for a few moments, then became 
scattering and finally ceased altogether. A 
moment later three German troopers came 
running out, their horses having been shot 
from under them. Then Julien decided that 
it was time for him to move. He knew it 
would be sure death to return to the village, 
so he went on down the path. 

“‘Run!’ shouted a voice ahead. ‘They 
will be back with assistance and we shall all 
be taken.’ 

“ ‘Hid you get all of them?’ eagerly ques¬ 
tioned the boy, as he came running up to the 
men he had aided to escape. 


54 


SEVEN SOLDIEES AND ALOAD OF HAY 


“ Three got away. You must come with 
us.’ 

“ ‘I cannot. My parents—> 

“A soldier grabbed him and yanked him 
along, though Julien struggled to free him¬ 
self, believing that he could hide in the 
woods and creep home after dark and thus 
be near his parents to aid them if needed. 
He was, however, dragged along with the 
soldiers, because they knew that if he were 
left behind he would probably be caught, 
and if so the lad surely would be shot. It 
was but a few hours later when they arrived 
at their own lines, a grateful and happy 
group of poilus. 

“On the following morning, the command¬ 
ing officer, having been told of the heroic 
part played by the little French peasant 
boy, called him up before the regiment and 
recounted the story of the brave little man’s 
rescue of the poilus. 

“ ‘It was but a trifle/ murmured the 
abashed Julien. 

“ ‘And it is for such trifles as these that 


LITTLE BOY HEROES OF FRANCE 


we bestow tbe Cross of War/ answered the 
commanding officer, jnnning tbe much-cov¬ 
eted decoration on the breast of the little 
patriot. 

“That ought to be the end of the story, 
boys, but it is not. Through information 
that Julien was able to give the command¬ 
ing officer, the French were able to train 
their artillery on that of the enemy and prac¬ 
tically wipe it out of existence. The French 
then marched ahead, and after a brisk battle 
drove the Germans from the village. 

“ Julien was acclaimed a hero by all the vil¬ 
lagers—by all except his father, who, though 
very proud of Julien’s achievement, made 
him go out and draw all the hay back to the 
barn whence he took it, which the little pa¬ 
triot did willingly and happily, for did he 
not wear on his breast the thanks of the 
French government for drawing that hay 
out to the edge of the forest as a cover for 
the escape of the beloved soldiers of 
France?” 


56 


CHAPTER V 


THE BOY WHO WORE A MONOCLE 


“Some one should have taken Julien’s 
father out behind the barn and given him a 
whipping/’ observed one of the boys after 
Bomber Haynes had finished telling them 
about the Seven Soldiers and a Load of Hay. 

“That, I was given to understand, was 
done, but in a different way. The French 
commander, when he learned of what the 
father had made little Julien do, sent for the 
parent and gave him such a lecture that he 
is not likely ever to offend in a like manner 
again. 

“The story for to-day concerns another 
French boy, a sturdy lad of twelve ‘tender’ 
years, who also had been reared on a farm 
and was stronger than his years would indi¬ 
cate. He had been used to hard work on his 


57 




LITTLE BOY HEROES OF FRANCE 


father’s farm, studying nights, going to 
school in the winter, and developing muscle 
and mind at the same time. 

“This lad’s name was Alain, and he was 
left alone when the Germans, sweeping 
through the little village in which he lived, 
had, purposely or otherwise, killed the boy’s 
father and mother. Alain saved himself by 
crawling under the floor of his father’s barn 
and hiding there until night, when he made 
his way on toward the French lines, which 
he eventually reached. 

“ T have come to join the army,’ he an¬ 
nounced when finally he found himself in 
the presence of the colonel of the French 
regiment. 

“ ‘Yes, my lad, but you are too young,’ ob¬ 
jected the officer good-naturedly. 

“ ‘The Boches have taken my father and 
mother; I have none left—only my beloved 
France can claim me now.’ 

“ ‘Alain, it would be better that you let me 
send you to Paris, where you may go to 
school.’ 


58 


THE BOY WHO WOKE A MONOCLE 


“ ‘There will be schools just the same 
after the Boche is whipped, but there will 
not always be Boches to whip. I must do 
something to avenge my father and mother, 
my Colonel/ 

“ ‘Yes, but what can you, a child, do in 
war?’ protested the commanding officer 
more for the purpose of drawing the lad out 
than to oppose him. 

“ ‘Alain can shoot, and shoot straight. 
His father taught him to shoot when he was 
but a child, and he can throw bombs, too/ 

“ ‘Bombs V questioned the officer, elevat¬ 
ing his eyebrows. ‘Where did you learn 
to throw bombs?’ 

“ ‘I saw the French soldiers practicing 
when they were garrisoned near my home. 
I then determined that I, too, should learn 
to throw bombs, and one day be a bomber in 
the French army, and I began practicing 
with nice round stones until I could throw 
almost as far and as surely as the French 
bombers. See! This is the position one 
takes when he is about to hurl a bomb at the 


59 


LITTLE BOY HEROES OF FRANCE 


Fated Boche,’ said the lad, assuming the cor¬ 
rect position of the bomber, the left hand 
pointed straight out at the mark, the right 
hand holding the bomb behind him. ‘And 
then, woof !’ 

“ ‘That is very good,’ approved the colonel. 
‘Still, I could not permit you to join the 
bombers just yet. I think, however, that 
you might make yourself useful in many 
little ways back of the firing line, and be¬ 
cause you are alone in the world I shall 
adopt you as the mascot of the regiment, if 
that will please you.’ 

“ ‘Oh, I thank you, sir. You make Alain 
very happy indeed.’ 

“From that moment the little Frenchman 
became the pet of the regiment. The sol¬ 
diers took a keen interest in instructing 
Alain in the arts of war, explaining to him 
all the details of the modern rifle, of machine 
guns and light artillery, and even the mecha¬ 
nism and operation of bombs, of which he 
already had a fairly good knowledge. 

“Alain was quick to learn—he was an apt 

60 


THE BOY WHO WOEE A MONOCLE 


pupil in war as well as in peace. Now and 
then he was permitted to go up to the front 
line to carry orders to the officers there, and 
it was a diversion for the poilus to see his 
smiling face. Occasionally they would per¬ 
mit him to fire a rifle at the parapet of the 
German trenches off there in the distance, 
but what he really was yearning for was to 
take part in a battle, that he might really 
feel he was fighting for France. 

“One night the troops went over the top 
for a big drive in the Marne sector. The 
artillery of both sides opened up and the 
very earth trembled under the thunder of 
exploding shells, but the booms and the 
crashes were music to his ears. All night 
the battle raged and Alain was in the thick 
of it, helping the wounded back, searching 
shell-holes for soldiers in distress, and giv¬ 
ing water from his canteen to suffering 
brave men, thus endearing himself more 
than ever to the soldiers of France. 

“With the dawning of the day the battle 
went on with renewed force. It was a criti- 


61 


LITTLE BOY HEROES OF FRANCE 


cal hour in the history of the war. To the 
north of Alain’s regiment thousands of 
clean-cut American soldiers were battling, 
too, and driving back the Huns foot by foot, 
which gave the Frenchmen fresh courage 
and caused them to fight the harder. 

“Late in the afternoon the Germans had 
been driven back for a long distance, but 
there were several invisible machine-gun 
nests that were causing the French no end 
of trouble. Thus far they had been unable 
to locate these nests, though several parties 
had been sent out to search for them. The 
keen eyes of little Alain were busy, too. 

“ ‘Why should I have eyes if not to see 
with?’ he questioned of himself, and began 
a systematic searching of the landscape by 
fixing his eyes on one point steadily for 
some moments and then moving them to an¬ 
other. In that way, little by little, he cov¬ 
ered the field and the edge of the woods some 
distance off to the left. 

“At last his patience and thoroughness 
were rewarded by the sight of a succession 

62 


THE BOY WHO WORE A MONOCLE 


of faint, quivering flashes that appeared to 
be more a trembling of heat waves in the air 
than the explosion of powder. He noticed, 
too, that with this peculiar quivering of the 
atmosphere came the rat-tat-tat of machine- 
gun fire. 

‘I have them , 5 chuckled the lad. ‘Now I 
shall show my Colonel that I am a soldier, 
for I shall get the murdering Boches single- 
handed . 5 All was excitement and no one 
paid any special heed to the little French 
boy, who came and went as he chose. Long 
since he had equipped himself with a rifle 
and a cartridge belt, but he had not used the 
weapon, seeing nothing at which to shoot. 
He now wished to add some bombs to his 
equipment, and, knowing where a supply 
was to be found, in a certain bomb-proof 
dugout, he hurried there and provided him¬ 
self with all he could carry of the deadly 
missiles. 

“Thus prepared, little Alain started out 
across the field, bearing to the left, and 
keeping low to avoid bullets and to hide his 

63 


LITTLE BOY HEROES OF FRANCE 


body from the view of the enemy as much as 
possible so that they might not discover 
what he was doing. 

“Having taken a bearing before he 
started, he had a tall tree as a landmark to 
go by. The top of the tree had been shat¬ 
tered by a shell and hung in a tangled mass, 
threatening to crash to the earth at any 
moment. It was directly to the north of 
this tree that he was certain the machine- 
gun nest was located. 

“Alain began turning in a broad semi¬ 
circle, ever with his eyes on the shell-shat¬ 
tered tree, and soon he was down on all 
fours, creeping cautiously forward. 

“ ‘It is there. Alain’s eyes did not play 
him tricks,’ he muttered as the sound of 
sputtering machine guns near at hand was 
plainly borne to his ears. 

“Search as he might, however, he was un¬ 
able to discover the hiding place of the ma¬ 
chine gunners who were causing so much 
annoyance to the French troops. There was 
such a roar of firearms that it was difficult 


64 


THE BOY WHO WORE A MONOCLE 


to place the sound of any single gun or group 
of guns. 

“He finally decided to enter the woods and 
creep about until he either found the enemy 
gunners or was himself found by the enemy. 
Suddenly he discovered something. A liel- 
meted head appeared just above what ap¬ 
peared to be a bed of moss and grass at the 
very edge of the forest and between him and 
his own lines. 

“ ‘A Boche !’ exclaimed the little French 
boy under his breath. ‘I have found the 
machine-gun place.’ 

“The German head soon disappeared, and 
now Alain was able to locate the machine- 
gun bursts at the point where he had seen 
the German’s head. How many men were 
down there he did not know, but he proposed 
to find out in his own original way. TJn- 
limbering his rifle and placing it beside him, 
he took two bombs and, after examining 
them critically, placed one beside the rifle. 

“The lad now rose cautiously until he was 
standing at his full height. Drawing back 

5 —Little Boy Heroes of France, 


LITTLE BOY HEROES OF FRANCE 


the right hand, which held a loaded bomb 
with the cotter pin drawn—it was only the 
pressure of his thumb that now prevented 
the bomb from exploding in his hand—he 
aimed carefully with the left hand at a point 
several feet to one side of the place where he 
had seen the German head rise from the 
ground. 

“Alain had a head on his shoulders, boys, 
as you can readily understand. Then he let 
fly. The bomb landed within a foot of the 
point at which he had aimed, but before it 
struck Alain was flat on his stomach behind 
a clump of bushes, for he well knew what 
was about to occur. You see he was quite 
close to the machine-gun emplacement, and 
when the bomb exploded it was certain to 
muss up the landscape for some distance 
about the place. 

“It did. The bomb exploded with a tre¬ 
mendous report. Dirt and leaves and 
pieces of shrubbery were hurled into the air, 
falling in a shower over the machine-gun 
emplacement and over the bomber as well. 


66 


THE BOY WHO WOKE A MONOCLE 


But before these had ceased falling Alain 
had hurled another bomb that landed on the 
other side of the hidden machine-gun em¬ 
placement. 

“ ‘Come out, you Boches !’ shouted the 
lone attacker. ‘Come out before I drop one 
on your cowardly heads. Bring your guns 
out with you. You are surrounded. Leave 
your other weapons where they are or you 
will be shot down before you get a chance to 
do any more damage. Out with you!’ 

“Men already were beginning to scramble 
from the machine-gun pit, holding their 
hands high above their heads, and were fol¬ 
lowed by a German captain. 

“ ‘About face! Keep your hands over 
your heads!’ commanded the lad from be¬ 
hind the bush where he was hiding, this time 
not lying down, but crouching low, with 
rifle and another bomb ready for instant 
service. ‘I thought I told you to bring the 
machine gun with you. Herr Captain, you 
will go back and fetch the gun.’ 

“ ‘I am an officer. I refuse to perform 


67 


LITTLE BOY HEKOES OF FRANCE 

such a menial task/ retorted the German 
captain. 

“ ‘All right. If you prefer a bullet in 
your back, you will not only get one, but you 
will get a volley. Are you going?’ 

“With a growl of anger and resentment 
the German captain returned to the pit and 
came up struggling with the machine gun. 

“ Tut it on your shoulder and obey or¬ 
ders. Twos, right; forward, march!’ 

“The Germans marched, Alain keeping a 
good, safe distance behind them and watch¬ 
ing his prisoners—fifteen of them—nar¬ 
rowly. He made the men march close 
together so that in case, as he told them, 
they offered any resistance he could get them 
all with one bomb. The German machine- 
gunners apparently were quite willing to be 
made captives, for they knew that now their 
fighting days were over and that they would 
get good treatment and plenty to eat from 
their captors, the French. But had they got 
sight of Alain before he discovered them, 
that would have been the end of Alain. 


68 


THE BOY WHO WOKE A MONOCLE 


“The lad took a more direct course with 
his prisoners on the return journey, being 
eager to get back to the French lines as 
quickly as possible. This took him directly 
through the zone of fire and made traveling 
extremely perilous, but the little French¬ 
man walked very erect, his eyes dancing, his 
face lighted up with joy over his victory. 
He permitted his prisoners to crouch low as 
they hurried across the fields, but watched 
them narrowly for signs of treachery, as by 
this time they must have realized that their 
captor was a mere child. At any rate, they 
understood fully that the ‘child’ was a dan¬ 
gerous infant to trifle with. 

“There were dugouts all over this part of 
the field, trenches new and old, barbed wire 
cunningly concealed under foliage, and 
other contrivances fashioned by the Ger¬ 
mans to catch the enemy. All these Alain 
avoided, but not paying much attention to 
the dugouts. 

“Finally, however, he came to a dugout that 
seemed to be of better construction than any 


69 


LITTLE BOY HEROES OF FRANCE 


others he had seen. It opened on a trench 
which had been under heavy fire all during 
the battle, and which had been deserted by 
the Germans, but something about it caused 
the child soldier to halt and eye it narrowly. 

“ ‘Hulloa, down there V he called. There 
was no response. ‘I know how to smoke the 
Boches out if there are any in that hole/ 
muttered the lad, who, after cautioning his 
prisoners to stand at a safe distance away 
with their backs to the scene, hurled a bomb 
over into the trench. It landed almost di¬ 
rectly in front of the heavy wooden door 
that closed the entrance to the dugout. A 
loud explosion followed, the door was blown 
in, and rocks and dirt came tumbling down 
into the trench, which was torn to pieces by 
the explosion. 

“ ‘Attention, you prisoners V commanded 
the lad, observing that his prisoners were 
becoming uneasy. ‘Come out from down 
there, Boches/ he added. 

“From the dugout two officers staggered 
out with arms raised above their heads. 


70 


THE BOY WHO WORE A MONOCLE 


“ ‘Kamerad V they shouted in chorus. 
Eight other men followed them, scrambling 
from the trench, unarmed, plainly glad to 
be out of the hole, where they expected 
sooner or later to be buried alive by the 
French shells that had been falling about 
them for hours and that were still falling. 
To the delight of the boy, the man who led 
the others from the trench was a German 
major. This was indeed a find worth while. 
The major wore a monocle, or single eye¬ 
glass. Following the German was an un¬ 
der-lieutenant whose face wore a surly 
expression and who plainly did not like the 
idea of surrendering to a boy. The trouble 
was that the Germans did not know how 
many revengeful French soldiers might be 
just to the rear of the boy. They reasoned 
that this was a French trick to give the 
French an excuse for shooting them down 
if they tried to escape from the little fellow 
who had captured them. At any rate Alain 
held the whip hand and he knew it, but never 
for a minute did he relax his vigilance. 


71 


LITTLE BOY HEROES OF FRANCE 


“ ‘Herr Major, put down the eyeglass on 
that stone to the right of you/ he com¬ 
manded. 

“The major obeyed with some hesitation. 

“ ‘You will now relieve the Herr Captain 
of the machine gun. He is weary from 
carrying it so long.’ 

“The major turned an angry face toward 
his youthful captor and was on the point of 
uttering an insulting refusal, but the words 
died on his lips, for he found himself looking 
into the muzzle of the rifle that little Alain 
held leveled at him. The major thereupon 
shouldered the machine gun, and, with his 
companions, was lined up beside the ma¬ 
chine-gun prisoners. 

“ ‘Forward V commanded the boy. Alain 
snatched up the monocle as he passed the 
stone, and stuck the glass into his left eye. 
In this formation the procession moved 
again toward the French lines. From the 
latter the odd-appearing party were ob¬ 
served a long time before they reached the 
lines. Eventually it was discovered that 


72 


THE BOY WHO WORE A MONOCLE 


these were Germans and that they were be¬ 
ing driven in by a boy carrying a rifle in one 
hand and a bomb in the other. 

“ ‘It is the boy Alain/ exclaimed a lieu¬ 
tenant. ‘Look at him !’ 

“There was a shout when the little sol¬ 
dier, with an eyeglass stuck in his left eye, 
marched soberly in, every inch a Frenchman, 
driving his prisoners before him. There 
was just the suspicion of a swagger in his 
stride, and he saluted gravely and with as 
much precision as he could, when he passed 
the front-line officers. 

“Right ahead, never stopping until he was 
before the field headquarters, went Alain, 
where, with military brevity, he reported to 
the commanding officer’s aide, ‘Twenty-two 
German privates and three officers.’ 

“The colonel in command gazed, first in 
amazement, then in half amusement, at the 
scene before him. Uttering a brief com¬ 
mand, the boy was relieved of his prisoners, 
who were turned over to the Intelligence 
Department to be searched and questioned. 


73 


LITTLE BOY HEROES OF FRANCE 


Then, throwing an affectionate arm about 
Alain, he led the lad to his office. 

“ ‘Now tell me about it/ he urged. 

“Alain did so without trying to glorify 
himself, explaining that he had gone out to 
try to capture the machine-gun nest that 
was causing the French so much annoyance. 

“ ‘That is all, my Colonel/ concluded the 
child. 

“ ‘No, it is not all/ exclaimed the com¬ 
manding officer. ‘Such deeds as these shall 
be made known to all the world, and you 
shall wear the cross of honor that I now pin 
on your breast. There, wear it and remem¬ 
ber that it is the gift of our beloved France 
to a brave little man who performed an 
heroic deed and who proved that he was a 
true Frenchman.’ 

“The colonel kissed the lad on both cheeks. 
Alain stood very stiffly, but his sturdy little 
form was trembling, and after he had 
saluted and hurried out, he rushed around 
to the rear of the headquarters building 
(which was nothing more than a temporary 


74 


ALEXANDRE THE COURAGEOUS 


shack), sat down very undignifiedly, and 
with both hands hugged the precious decora¬ 
tion to his breast while the tears rolled down 
his cheeks. 

“Fellows, do not for a minute think that 
Alain’s tears were the tears of a weakling. 
They were the tears of a man—a brave man 
who had exemplified by his deeds the spirit 
of the Children of France.” 


CHAPTER VI 


ALEXANDRE THE COURAGEOUS 


The eyes of the boys were glowing when 
the recital of Alain’s brave deeds came to a 
close. Every shoulder was thrown a little 
further back, every chin was set, and each 
boy pictured himself in the place of little 
Alain. 

“What became of Alain afterwards?” 
questioned Abe Skinner. 

75 




LITTLE BOY HEEOES OF FRANCE 


“He was later taken into the French Army 
and sent to a training school to learn to be 
an officer, and by this time I presume he is 
an officer, doing his duty simply and bravely, 
as every Frenchman does,” replied Sergeant 
Bomber Haynes. “Before we wind up our 
to-day’s session I will tell you another story 
about a courageous little French boy, whose 
courage was of an unusually high order. 

“Alexandre was not quite thirteen, quiet 
for a boy and a little diffident, but he was all 
man, possessing the spirit that has made 
France so great and carried her on to victory 
in the face of such terrible obstacles. Alex¬ 
andre lived in the village of Fontaine, not 
far from Cambrai and the Hindenburg Line, 
but one day the Germans, in superior num¬ 
bers, drove the French back. The French 
did not stay driven back for very long, and 
attacked and finally drove the enemy out of 
the little village and back into their own 
lines. 

“While the enemy was in Fontaine, how¬ 
ever, they stripped the town of everything 


76 


ALEXANDRE THE COURAGEOUS 


of value that they could lay their hands on, 
committing many cruel deeds, robbing the 
inhabitants of their valuables, taking all the 
food in the village, and leaving the people 
helpless and destitute.” 

“The cowards!” breathed Abe Skinner. 

“They are worse than that, Abe, and, like 
all such peoples, are cruel and relentless so 
long as they have the upper hand. 

“When the Germans retreated from the 
village they took with them as prisoners all 
the French boys they could lay their hands 
on. Alexandre had the misfortune to be 
one of these. The little Frenchman pro¬ 
tested with all his might against this indig¬ 
nity, and declared that no Boche could keep 
him for long. Because of his boasts he was 
kept under guard, or at least where some 
one would have an eye on him all the time, 
and he was put to work polishing officers* 
shoes and other humiliating tasks, and 
beaten when he did not do his work well, 
which was often, because he took a pride in 
doing in the worst possible manner the tasks 


LITTLE BOY HEBOES OF FRANCE 


at which he was set. Every beating he re¬ 
ceived he felt was for France, so why should 
he not take his beatings, was the way the 
little fellow reasoned it out. 

“One day he was ordered to take a rifle 
and fight. 

“ Tight against my beloved France?’ he 
demanded. ‘I will die first. I give you 
warning that if you place a rifle in my hands 
I shall shoot a Boche with it. That’s what 
Alexandre will do.’ 

“ ‘Then you shall be shot at once!’ thun¬ 
dered the German captain who had tried to 
press him into the enemy service. ‘I give 
you until to-morrow morning to think it 
over. All your companions whom we 
brought with us have accepted service with 
us and—’ 

“ ‘It is a lie!’ retorted Alexandre heat¬ 
edly. ‘Bah! The truth is not in a Boche.’ 

“ ‘Take him away,’ commanded the cap¬ 
tain. 

“Alexandre was placed in a dugout where 
there was no light, where the mud was above 


78 


ALEXANDRE THE COURAGEOUS 


Ms boot tops, and where the rats fought and 
squealed all the night through. He fought 
them, he raged at the cruelty of the Hun, 
and threatened under his breath to be even 
with them when once he was free. It 
seemed not to occur to the lad that the cap¬ 
tain had promised that he should be shot if 
he did not agree to fight for the Fatherland. 

“That night was the longest night that 
the little Frenchman ever had passed 
through. It came to an end shortly after 
daylight, when a sentry threw open the door 
and ordered him to come out. Alexandre 
did so, his face wearing a rebellious look, his 
chin set stubbornly. 

“Alexandre was again conducted to the 
captain, who demanded to know if the boy 
had decided to accept the offer to fight for 
Germany, and have good food and clothes 
and a fine position in the army after he had 
gained a little in years. 

“‘I fight only for France, not against 
France/ he made bold reply. 

“ ‘You will never fight for France/ an- 


79 


LITTLE BOY HEROES OF FRANCE 


swered the captain. Trance soon will be 
under German rule, and all Frenchmen "who 
have raised a hand against her will be shot.’ 

“ ‘I doubt not that you would do as you 
say if you had the chance. Herr Captain, 
you will never have the chance; your army 
will be whipped, your Kaiser put off his 
throne, your boasted Fatherland will soon 
be down on its knees begging for mercy. 
When it does the French will not shoot you, 
but they will make you pay dearly for the 
wrongs you have done to France and to little 
Belgium. The French are human, the 
Boches are murderers—they murder not 
only men, but women and children. I would 
die before I would fight for you!’ 

“ ‘Your desire shall be granted. Like all 
Frenchmen, you are a fool. Take him 
away.’ 

“Alexandre was led from the captain’s 
quarters and toward the rear of the lines. 
His guard, finally reaching a small sapling¬ 
like tree, pushed him against it and bound 
him to it, then walked away and left him. 


80 


ALEXANDER THE COUEAGEOUS 


A little faint from lack of food, and weary 
from fighting rats all night long, it was with 
difficulty that the lad was able to hold him¬ 
self up. Nevertheless he stood up very 
stiffly, with head erect, scarcely moving, as 
observing eyes noted. 

“The Boches were at their breakfast, at 
which they took their time. Finishing this 
an hour later, a squad of soldiers, with rifles 
over their shoulders, marched out on the 
field and came to rest a short distance from 
and facing the little French lad. While 
pretending to ignore them, Alexandre 
watched them narrowly. 

“ ‘Perhaps they have come to shoot Alex¬ 
andre/ he told himself. ‘I fear them not.’ 

“A few moments later the captain saun¬ 
tered out on the field and, in passing, spoke 
a few words to the sergeant in command of 
the squad. He then strolled over to the tree 
to which the boy was tied and eyed him dis¬ 
dainfully. 

“ ‘You know what those men are?’ he 
questioned. 

6 —Little Boy Heroes of France. 0-1 


/ 


LITTLE BOY HEROES OF FRANCE 

“ ‘Roches!’ answered the lad. 

“ ‘Yes, but they are more than that. They 
compose a firing squad. Can you not guess 
why they are here?’ 

“ ‘Alexandre never was a good guesser, 
but all German soldiers are murderers. 
Those are no different from the rest.’ 

“ ‘You are bold. It is not possible that 
you understand clearly. Yonder men are 
here to shoot a Frenchman—a little French 
fool. You are that one. What have you to 
say?’ 

“Alexandre merely shrugged his shoul¬ 
ders. 

“ ‘You are telling me nothing new. You 
have said the same thing before. I do not 
fear you. I have but one life to give, and 
that belongs to France, and France can 
spare it better than she can the life of any 
one of her soldiers. By shooting women 
and children you do not weaken the French, 
you but give them strength, you lay up more 
trouble for yourselves.’ 

“ ‘Listen, little fool! If I spare your life 

82 


ALEXANDRE THE COURAGEOUS 


and promise to send yon back to Germany 
and place you in a military school where you 
can become big and great, will you promise 
to forget your own country and become a 
loyal little German soldier?’ 

“ ‘So that is what you are trying to do, 
Herr Captain, to turn the Children of 
France against their homeland and to make 
them over into nice little Boche murderers! 
Herr Captain, you have a bigger task on 
your hands than you think, for, like all 
Boches, you are a wooden-head. You failed 
to read the French correctly when you went 
to war, you missed it again when you drew 
England into the war, and you were all fools 
when you thought the great American peo¬ 
ple were afraid to fight. Afraid!’ Alex¬ 
andre laughed aloud. ‘Why, Herr Captain, 
the boys of my age in our beloved America 
await with impatience the day when they 
shall get into the army and fight you. 
Afraid? Bah!’ 

“The captain stepped off to one side and 
made a signal to the sergeant in command 

83 


LITTLE BOY HEROES OF FRANCE 


of the firing squad, which quickly came to 
attention. In the meantime little Alex¬ 
andre’s mind was working rapidly. He 
could not quite understand why, if the 
captain proposed to shoot him, he should 
have delayed so long—spent so much time 
in profitless parley. 

“ ‘Attention !’ The voice of the command¬ 
ing officer rang out sternly. At the com¬ 
mand the men of the firing squad brought 
their rifles into position, muzzles pointing 
toward the ground. 

“ ‘Take aim! Little fool, do you wish to 
be blindfolded?’ questioned the Herr Cap¬ 
tain. 

“ ‘A Frenchman is unafraid,’ answered 
the boy simply, turning his eyes toward the 
firing squad. 

“Alexandre was smiling as he looked 
straight into the muzzles of the rifles facing 
him. ‘For France,’ he murmured. 

“ ‘Fire!’ 

“Eight rifles rang out in a crashing vol¬ 
ley. 


84 


ALEXANDRE THE COURAGEOUS 


“Instead of crumpling up with, eight bul¬ 
lets in his body, little Alexandre still stood 
smiling, his face flushed, though a slight pale¬ 
ness showed about the lips. He was unhurt. 

“ ‘Make ready! Take aim! Fire !’ com¬ 
manded the captain. 

“Again the eight rifles crashed out in vol¬ 
ley, but still the plucky lad held his smile 
and his eyes challenged the Hun captain to 
do his worst. 

“ ‘You are too brave to be a Frenchman/ 
sneered the officer, but with a note of ad¬ 
miration in his tone. 

“ ‘The next, I take it, Herr Captain, will 
be solid bullets/ retorted Alexandre. 

“The next will be, but for now you are to 
be spared. I was trying you out for a pur¬ 
pose. You have stood the test. When next 
you are stood up before a squad their rifles 
will be loaded with bullets. Blank cart¬ 
ridges were fired at you this time!’ The 
captain grinned. ‘Take him to the stable 
and feed him. I shall wish to talk with him 
again this evening.’ 


85 


LITTLE BdY HEROES OF FRANCE 


“This time Alexandre was conducted to a 
barn that stood in the fields just outside the 
immediate base where the German regiment 
was billeted. He was led to the granary, a 
small, square room lined with tin to keep out 
the mice, and in which there were large bins 
with removable boards. A small window 
opened out on the rear yard of the barn. 

“ ‘If you try to escape you will be shot/ 
warned his guard. 

“The guard left him without another 
word, padlocking the door behind him. 
Alexandre sprang lightly to the door, and 
with an ear against it listened intently. He 
could hear the guard moving softly about 
out there, but after a short time the guard 
left the building. It was then that the boy 
took a board from a bin and, bracing it 
against a partition, crawled up to the win¬ 
dow at the peak of the low roof. He peered 
out and discovered the guard making a cir¬ 
cuit of the barn, though the boy saw to it 
that the German did not see him. After a 
time the sentry went away, whereupon 

8G 


ALEXANDRE THE COURAGEOUS 


Alexandre put the board back where he 
found it and, stretching himself out on the 
floor, went to sleep. 

“When he awakened it was late in the day 
—in fact, it was almost night. On the gran¬ 
ary floor just inside the door had been 
placed, while he slept, half a small loaf of 
bread and a tin of water. The little French¬ 
man lost no time in eating the bread and 
drinking the water, for he was both hungry 
and thirsty, and the meager meal freshened 
him up wonderfully. 

“Just before dark a guard thrust in an¬ 
other chunk of bread and poured a little 
water into the can, for which the boy thanked 
him politely. After a keen look about the 
granary the guard went away. The lad was 
about to begin eating when he suddenly 
decided that he would put the bread in his 
pocket to eat when he was hungrier. He 
helped himself liberally to the water, and 
then stationed himself at the window. 
There he clung until some time after dark, 
watching the barnyard and the field beyond. 


87 


LITTLE BOY HEROES OF FRANCE 


“ ‘The hour to go has arrived/ he mut¬ 
tered finally. It was but the work of a 
minute or less to remove the window, which 
he stood in a bin out of sight, and, thrusting 
his head out, looked about him as well as he 
could in the darkness. Alexandre then let 
himself out backwards. The window open¬ 
ing was so small that he was obliged to do 
considerable wriggling to get through, but 
finally he managed to get out with the loss 
of some skin from his shoulders. 

“His first work was to creep around the 
corner of the barn to learn if the guard was 
still there. He was. Alexandre nearly 
stepped on him. The fellow was asleep 
with his back against the barn, his rifle 
standing against the building within easy 
reach of his hand. 

“The little Frenchman’s hand stole out 
and cautiously lifted the rifle clear and into 
the crook of his arm. As noiselessly as a 
cat could tread, he stole away into the dark¬ 
ness, carrying the rifle with him. 

“Alexandre was not heading directly to- 

88 


ALEXANDRE THE COURAGEOUS 

ward the French lines, for there was a Ger¬ 
man army between him and his own people. 
He bore off to the north, hoping to be able 
to make his way around the right flank of 
the Germans. Just after midnight he came 
to a forest, and, not knowing his way 
through the woods, he lay down and went 
to sleep. 

“In the meantime the guard, with two 
other soldiers, set out to find the boy. More 
by good luck than otherwise they followed 
the general direction taken by the little 
Frenchman, and just after daylight they 
found the spot where he had slept and eaten 
his piece of bread. His cap lay on the 
ground at that spot, which led them to be¬ 
lieve he had left in a hurry. Broken twigs 
and footprints in the soft turf, in spots, and 
indications of haste, verified their suspicion, 
so they pressed on, following the trail as 
well as they knew how. 

It was near midday when they stopped for 
a halt and a rest, and to talk over their fur¬ 
ther movements—for they were getting 


89 


LITTLE BOY HEROES OF FRANCE 


rather nearer to the French lines than they 
wished—and it was there they got a shock. 

“The three soldiers had stood their rifles 
against a tree before sitting down, and re¬ 
moved their helmets. As they sat discuss¬ 
ing the situation a calm, youthful voice from 
somewhere in the bushes, saying, ‘Hello, 
Boches,’ caused them to leap to their feet. 

“ ‘Sit down again, you Boches. I have 
something to say to you. I—’ 

“The three men sprang for their rifles, but 
there were no rifles there. The weapons 
had most mysteriously disappeared. 

“ ‘I have your guns, Herr Boches, and if 
you don’t sit down I will shoot your legs 
from under you so you will sit down more 
quickly than you ever did before.’ 

“Alexandre had been hiding when the sol¬ 
diers came up, and, after observing them 
and the position of their weapons, decided 
that he would get the guns and then capture 
the men. The rifles were far enough away 
from the soldiers to permit his taking them 
without being observed, but he had to work 

90 


ALEXANDRE THE COURAGEOUS 


with great caution, and now the men were at 
his mercy and they knew it. 

“ ‘Listen to the words of Alexandre/ he 
said. 

“ ‘It is the prisoner/ gasped the guard who 
had allowed him to escape. 

“ ‘The same, Herr Boche. But listen! 
To go back without me means that your dear 
Herr Captain will shoot you. To go back 
without your rifles and to confess that a boy 
took them away from you makes death cer¬ 
tain for all of you. I could easily shoot you 
where you stand, but the French are not 
murderers like the Huns; they are human 
beings. I will spare you so long as you 
obey orders, but, if you try to escape, Alex¬ 
andre surely will shoot you. Put on your 
hats and get up/ 

“The men knew that what the lad had said 
regarding their captain was true, and there¬ 
fore they were quite willing to be captured. 
They promised that they would obey the 
commands of their captor, and a few min¬ 
utes later the party set off through the for- 

91 


LITTLE BOY HEROES OF FRANCE 


est, with the little Frenchman following 
them with rifle at ready. 

“It was late in the afternoon when they 
emerged from the forest. Alexandre halted 
to look about him and get his bearings and 
nodded with satisfaction when he discov¬ 
ered landmarks with which he was familiar. 
Weary, but still full of determination, he or¬ 
dered the men to press on, and just before 
dusk he encountered a French patrol. 

“ ‘Who are you?’ they demanded, eyeing 
the lad keenly. 

“ ‘I am a Frenchman/ was the proud re¬ 
ply, ‘and these are my prisoners. I would 
report to your commanding officer at once/ 

“ ‘You will do that whether you wish to or 
not/ answered the sergeant in command/Of 
the patrol. ‘No doubt you are all right, but 
you know this is war and we must be care¬ 
ful/ 

“Reaching the lines after dark Alexandre 
was detained with his prisoners in a cow 
shed with a guard over them, as the com¬ 
manding officer and his subordinates were 

92 


ALEXANDER THE COUEAGEOUS 


too busy to bother with three prisoners and 
a boy who might or might not be one of them. 

“Alexandre was too good a soldier to 
grumble, so he lay down and went to sleep 
on the floor. On the following morning he 
was taken before a captain in the Intelli¬ 
gence Department, to whom he related the 
story of his own capture, his escape, and the 
capture of the German soldiers who had 
gone out to take him. 

“The captain gazed upon the little fellow 
with admiration. 

“ ‘It is of such material that the soldiers 
of France are made/ he said feelingly. ‘You 
shall have safe conduct to your home, and 
you shall be cited for bravery. May you 
live long to serve France and make your 
country proud of you, as they will be when 
hearing of your brave exploits !’ 

“The captain kissed the little hero on both 
cheeks, then settled down to the business of 
the moment, which was that of questioning 
Alexandre on what he had discovered while 
in the enemy’s lines. The lad gave the 

93 


LITTLE BOY HEROES OF FRANCE 


French officer much valuable information, 
information that the captain had been try¬ 
ing to obtain ever since the Huns had taken 
up their new position. Then he sent for a 
poilu to take him back to his village, where 
the story of his exploits was soon spread 
about and where he was acclaimed as a hero. 

“Some days later, Alexandre received a 
long official envelope from Paris, and the let¬ 
ter enclosed told him how proud France and 
its President were to know that he had set 
such a shining example for the youth of his 
country.” 


94 


CHAPTEK VII 


THE LITTLE SCOUT OF CAMBRAI WOOD 


“ Jean was his name and he was a stupid¬ 
looking boy,” said Bomber Haynes when, 
several days later, he stopped at the school- 
house in the afternoon for an hour or so with 
the boys. 

“Jean was a peasant boy who had been 
reared in the vicinity of Cambrai Wood and 
knew every foot of the country thereabouts. 
He was only fourteen, but he had a keen 
mind and a heart that beat for France. 
Like many French lads, hundreds of them, 
he had attached himself to the army and 
was permitted to move along with it, doing 
odd jobs and making himself generally use¬ 
ful. As was the case with many of his kind, 
his parents had been lost when the Germans 
swept over the place where he lived, and he 


95 




LITTLE BOY HEROES OF FRANCE 


did not know whether his mother and father 
were living or dead. 

“He was a part of the fighting forces of 
France, unofficially, but he did his duty in 
really a bigger way than if he had carried a 
rifle and gone over the top to engage in hand- 
to-hand conflict. As a matter of fact, he did 
go over the top several times when the com¬ 
pany officers either did not chance to ob¬ 
serve him, or else looked the other way on 
purpose while Jean scrambled over the 
parapet and lost himself in the mass of 
charging soldiers. About this charging, 
perhaps you do not know that there is sel¬ 
dom any brilliant dash about it, such as we 
are used to seeing in pictures, and as they 
used to do in earlier wars.” 

“Yes, they creep along,” spoke up one of 
the boys. 

“For some time the French commander on 
that sector had been seeking to get informa¬ 
tion as to the strength of the enemy before 
him, the location of his heavy artillery and 
his ammunition dumps. These latter are 


96 


LITTLE SCOUT OF CAMBRAI WOOD 


great piles of shells, usually camouflaged or 
covered so that the observation flying ma¬ 
chines cannot find them. 

“Time and time again night patrols had 
been sent out to capture Germans to be ques¬ 
tioned, but from none of the men captured 
were the French able to get the desired in¬ 
formation. 

“All this came to the ears of Jean because 
he was much among the officers, carrying 
messages for them and performing other 
services. He thought over this, day and 
night, then one day he asked permission to 
speak to the colonel on a matter of im¬ 
portance. The request was granted. Sev¬ 
eral officers were in conference with the 
colonel when little Jean entered and came 
smartly to attention, saluting with as fine 
precision as any veteran in the service could 
do. The officers smiled and nodded approv¬ 
ingly. 

“ Well?’ questioned the colonel. 

“ ‘If I may make so bold as to speak, my 
Colonel, I think Jean can do it,’ he said. 

7 —Little Boy Heroes of France, fj'j' 


LITTLE BOY HEROES OF FRANCE 


“ ‘Do what?’ 

“ ‘Find out about the Roches, how many 
of them there are over there, where their 
artillery is and where the dumps are, so that 
our brave birdmen may drop bombs on 
them.’ 

“The officers glanced at each other 
amusedly, for all this was a strictly confi¬ 
dential staff matter. 

“ ‘What makes you think we wish this in¬ 
formation?’ questioned the colonel. 

“ ‘Jean knows that you do. He has ears 
and with them he hears many things— 
things that he does not speak of, for a soldier 
must not talk of the things he hears.’ 

“ ‘Excellent,’ approved the colonel. ‘And 
what is it that you propose to do?’ 

“ ‘It is not that I propose. I ask the privi¬ 
lege of serving my beloved country by get¬ 
ting the information you wish.’ 

“ ‘What I should like to hear is how you 
propose to accomplish this task where so 
many have failed,’ urged the colonel half 
amusedly. 


98 


LITTLE SCOUT OF CAMBEAI WOOD 


“ ‘I should, of course, go into the German 
lines for it, my Colonel/ 

“ ‘Impossible! You would be sure to be 
captured and shot/ 

“ ‘Captured I might be, my Colonel, but 
Jean looks so much the fool that they 
would take him as he looks and put him to 
work, for the Boches are more stupid than 
the cows of the fields that do not know 
enough to run and hide when the shells be¬ 
gin to fall about them, as you have no doubt 
many times observed/ 

“The officers laughed heartily at this, but 
it was plain that they were becoming inter¬ 
ested in what little Jean had proposed. 

“ ‘We will take for granted that you can 
do what you say, and we will assume that 
you have succeeded to the point of getting 
within the German lines. Now how would 
you propose to get the information that you 
think we wish; and, lastly, how would you 
get this information to us? ? 

“ ‘I should come back to you with it, my 
Colonel/ 


99 


LITTLE BOY HEROES OF FRANCE 


“ ‘Not if you were taken prisoner and shot, 
Jean.’ 

“ ‘Jean looks like too big a fool to be worth 
shooting. It is only the clever men, like 
some of those my Colonel has sent over, who 
are shot.’ 

“The little soldier’s shot went home, for 
several clever scouts, whom the colonel had 
sent across to get the desired information, 
had been captured and shot, though he was 
amazed to hear that Jean knew all about it. 
The colonel tried to look stern, while the 
other officers passed hands across their faces 
to hide their grins. It was plain to all that 
little Jean was far from being the fool that 
he appeared to be, and they began to wonder 
if, after all, his proposal did not have some 
merit in it. 

“ ‘You are bold, my son,’ observed the 
colonel. 

“ ‘I do not intend so to be, my Colonel. 
Have I your permission to go over?’ 

“ ‘That I shall have to consider for a time. 
If you were a man I should say yes, but, 

100 


LITTLE SCOUT OF CAMBRAI WOOD 


Jean, you are a mere child, and the French 
do not send children to their deaths, as the 
Huns do.’ 

“ ‘If at any time you should get a letter 
signed by me, you will know that you have 
given me permission to go over there and 
that I have succeeded, my Colonel.’ 

“ ‘You will not go without my permission!’ 
returned the colonel sternly. 

“ ‘No, sir; not of my own free will. Is 
that all, sir?’ 

“The colonel nodded and Jean, saluting, 
withdrew. 

“ ‘You will hear from that queer fellow,’ 
spoke up a captain after the lad’s departure. 

“ ‘He is very smart. I believe he can 
serve us well in many ways, but I cannot 
permit him to do this thing. It is impos¬ 
sible.’ The officers then resumed their dis¬ 
cussion of a proposed attack that they had 
been planning when Jean was received. 

“In the meantime the little French boy 
went about his duties in his usual plodding 
manner. 


101 


LITTLE BOY HEROES OF FRANCE 


“The plans for the attack were carefully 
laid, and the zero hour, when the men were 
to go over the top, was set for one o’clock on 
the following morning. Secret as the plans 
of the colonel and his staff were, Jean knew 
that they were going over, and somehow 
managed to come very close to guessing the 
hour when the movement was to take place. 
He decided to go with them. 

“For fear that he might be sent back, he 
crept up to the rear of the French front-line 
trench some time after dark and lay down 
to wait and to watch, though he was above 
ground and very much exposed to the occa¬ 
sional shelling of the German guns. He 
was, however, rather well used to being 
shelled and never gave very much heed to it. 

“Shortly after midnight, quiet activity in 
the trench below him told the boy that he 
had not been mistaken, and that prepara¬ 
tions were being made for a big attack, for 
the front-line trench was rapidly filling up 
with men who were quietly slipping in from 
the communicating trenches. 


102 


LITTLE SCOUT OF CAMBEAI WOOD 


“The troops went over the top at one 
o’clock in the morning. He waited until 
they were well clear and out in the field, then 
slipped over into the trench, climbed the 
parapet and started on after them. 

“ ‘Somebody is going to catch it to-night,’ 
muttered Jean. ‘Somebody is catching it,’ 
he added as a shell burst ahead of him and a 
whole group of soldiers went down under 
the explosion. The boy flattened himself on 
the ground until the shower of shell frag¬ 
ments had fallen; then he rose and plodded 
along, stopping by the group of fallen sol¬ 
diers to see if there were anything that he 
could do for them. There was not. They 
were beyond human help. 

“Soon the second wave caught up with and 
passed him. Jean fell in behind this second 
wave and quickened his pace somewhat, for 
he did not wish to be left too far in the rear. 

“By now the French artillery was hurling 
tons of projectiles into the forest, which was 
lighted up by their explosions and the fires 
that they started. Directly ahead the Ger- 


103 


LITTLE BOY HEEOES OF FEANCE 


mans also were firing from trenches and 
from bomb-proofs and shell holes, and a ter¬ 
rible din was in the ears of the little French 
boy. All the time he kept working his way 
toward the Cambrai Wood. This he could 
not do very rapidly because he would be 
liable to get into the fire from his own army. 

“It was about half past three o’clock in 
the morning when Jean finally got within 
easy reaching distance of the Wood. Day¬ 
light soon would be upon them and he knew 
that he must make the effort to get into the 
forest soon, or his opportunity would be lost 
until the next night and perhaps altogether. 
It was one thing to walk deliberately into 
the enemy lines during a battle, and another 
to do it when there was no battle on. In the 
latter case he would at once lay himself 
open to suspicion; in the former he stood a 
chance of having a reasonable excuse for be¬ 
ing there. 

“Jean skulked into the woods with more 
quickness than one would have believed him 
capable of. He took a course toward the 


104 


LITTLE SCOUT OF CAMBKAI WOOD 


rear of tlie German lines that curved around 
the active sector, now and then dropping 
down when he found himself in range of a 
German machine gun. All the time, how¬ 
ever, Jean was getting further and further 
into the Hun lines. Far hack in the forest, 
in a space of some two acres where the large 
trees had been felled, he found a huge am¬ 
munition dump. Men were actively at work 
there, passing out shells to meet the de¬ 
mands of the various guns up at the front. 

“Gazing up at the stars and making such 
calculations as he could of the direction in 
which he had been traveling, he arrived at 
a very fair estimate of the location of the 
dump, and determined to visit it again if he 
got the opportunity. That this was only a 
temporary ammunition dump, he under¬ 
stood. The really worth-while ammunition 
dumps naturally would be further back. 

“The first streaks of dawn were showing 
in the sky when he turned away from the am¬ 
munition dump and began tramping into the 
protection of the forest. He kept on until 

105 


LITTLE BOY HEROES OF FRANCE 


it was no longer safe to continue, and then 
lay down at the base of a tree and went to 
sleep. 

“You see little Jean felt certain that he 
would be discovered, but that was what he 
wished. It was a part of his shrewd little 
plan to be taken prisoner and conducted fur¬ 
ther back, for in that way he would be able 
to see more without laying himself open to 
suspicion. He actually went to sleep, and 
when he awakened the sun was high in the 
heavens and some one was roughly shaking 
him by the shoulder. 

“ ‘Who are you?’ demanded a rough, rasp¬ 
ing German voice. 

“ T am a Frenchman. Go away and let 
me sleep/ he answered in the same lan¬ 
guage, which, having lived near the border 
for so long, he was able to speak. 

“‘So? A Frenchman? Come with me.’ 
He dragged rather than led the boy, Jean 
rubbing his eyes sleepily, to the sergeant, 
who in turn sent him to a corporal’s guard 
where other prisoners were herded. With 

106 


LITTLE SCOUT OF CAMBRAI WOOD 


these Jean held no conversation. He ap¬ 
peared to be too stupid to talk. After lean¬ 
ing sleepily against a tree for more than an 
hour, during which he heard remarks made 
not very complimentary to himself, he, with 
the other prisoners, was driven further into 
the woods and on toward the rear. 

“They had not gone more than a couple of 
miles when they were halted before a series 
of bomb-proof dugouts. There were many 
soldiers and officers about, and he had no 
difficulty in surmising that this was a field 
headquarters. There were high and low 
officers there, and all was activity. He 
learned from their conversation that the 
battle had not gone well with the French, 
that the latter had not succeeded in getting 
into the woods, and that for the time being 
the battle was practically over. 

“A corporal finally shook him awake and 
dragged him to the dugout, where Jean was 
faced by a German captain who spoke to 
him in German, asking his name. 

“Jean shook his head, which the captain 


107 


LITTLE BOY HEROES OF FRANCE 


interpreted as meaning that the boy did not 
understand. 

“ ‘Who are you?’ the captain then de¬ 
manded in French. 

“ ‘I am a Frenchman,’ was the brief reply. 

“ ‘Your name—what is it?’ snapped the 
captain with a show of impatience. 

“ ‘Jean.’ 

“ ‘Jean what?’ 

“ ‘I—I don’t know. I am a Frenchman.’ 

“The German captain raised a foot and 
kicked the little French boy. It hurt dread¬ 
fully, but Jean merely blinked and rubbed 
the spot on which the Hun’s boot had landed. 

“ ‘What were you doing on the field 
with the army? Fighting, I suppose. The 
French make old women and children fight. 
I say, what were you doing on the field?’ 

“ ‘Carrying water. The French made 
Jean work until his back was nearly broken. 
Jean does not like to work; he would sleep.’ 

“ ‘How many men have the French op¬ 
posed to us out there?’ 

“ ‘Jean does not know. Many.’ 

108 


LITTLE SCOUT OF CAMBRAI WOOD 


“ ‘How many batteries?’ 

“ ‘Many.’ 

“ ‘Wbo is in command?’ 

“Jean blinked and thought and several 
times opened his mouth to speak, then closed 
it again, as if not certain of the reply he 
would make. Finally he blurted out the 
word Fouchard. The latter was a general 
in the French army, but he was in command 
of another sector further north. 

“The German officer nodded. He felt that 
he had at least got some information out of 
his stupid prisoner, and from his expression 
Jean shrewdly guessed that none of the 
other prisoners had told him the name of the 
commanding officer in the present drive. 

“ ‘What did General Fouchard expect to 
gain by attacking us last night?’ questioned 
the captain. 

“ ‘Boches!’ The word came out almost 
explosively, drawing a laugh from the Hun 
captain and the under-officers with him. 

“ ‘That is the time he showed himself to 
be possessed of a touch of human intelli- 

109 


LITTLE BOY HEROES OF FRANCE 


gence. The boy is more than half fool and 
the rest of him is harmless. Take him back 
with the others and set him to work. He 
understands no German. That I could see 
by watching his face when addressing him 
in German. Make him work hard, as a 
French dog should.’ The captain waved the 
boy away. 

“In company with the other prisoners, 
Jean was conducted to the rear lines of the 
Germans, and all were put into an enclosure 
surrounded by barbed wire and guarded by 
sentries. For the first day and night he 
had little to do, but on the second day he was 
permitted to go outside and work at odd 
jobs, getting many a kick and cuff from Hun 
officers and privates alike. At night he was 
returned to the enclosure. He was glad of 
this, for he was observing his fellow pris¬ 
oners critically. 

“From day to day Jean was given a little 
more liberty and he grew more and more 
stupid, and his body was black and blue 
from kicks and blows. Just the same, he 


110 


LITTLE SCOUT OF CAMBKAI WOOD 


was getting valuable information. From a 
soldier lie got information about gun em¬ 
placements; from another he learned the 
location of some of the smaller ammunition 
dumps, and the big, important ammunition 
dumps he had discovered himself. He col¬ 
lected a vast fund of information that his 
commanding officer would give a great deal 
to have, and, too, Jean had picked out cer¬ 
tain of his fellow prisoners to use in getting 
information back to the French. 

“ ‘Why don’t you escape, now that you 
have the chance?’ he said to one of these one 
evening. 

“The prisoner said he would do so quickly 
enough if he felt sure that he had a chance. 

“ ‘It is easy. After midnight there is but 
one guard and he stops at one o’clock to eat 
his bread and cheese. I will show you the 
way out if you will carry a letter to the 
French colonel.’ 

“ ‘You are a spy?’ 

“ ‘No, I am a fool. Be ready at midnight. 
Listen and I will tell you how to do it.’ Jean 


111 


LITTLE BOY HEROES OF FRANCE 


then gave very brief directions for reaching 
the French lines, warning the French sol¬ 
dier, however, that he must ever be on the 
watch for roving German patrols, and that 
if captured he must make away with the let¬ 
ter for the French colonel, even if he had to 
make a meal of it. 

“The soldier gave his word. He was too 
delighted at the opportunity for escape to 
refuse anything. 

“That night little Jean pretended to sleep, 
but did not, and promptly at midnight crept 
out into the open pen, where he lay flat on 
the ground, watching the guard and every¬ 
thing else in his surroundings. Finally the 
guard went to his bread and cheese, and it 
was then that the French boy hurried to the 
side of his messenger. 

“ The hour has arrived,’ he whispered. 
‘All is well. Come !’ 

“With two sticks with niches cut in their 
ends he breached two of the barbed wires of 
the enclosure apart just sufficiently to let a 
man through, but even at that the prisoner’s 


112 



PRESSED A LETTER INTO HIS HAND 
















































































































LITTLE SCOUT OF CAMBKAI WOOD 


clothing was torn and his flesh scratched in 
squeezing through. Before he left, Jean 
pressed a letter into his hand. 

“ ‘Bemember, my poilu, it is for France. 
Sacrifice your life if need, but forget that 
such a person as Jean exists. Give my com¬ 
mander no information about me save to say 
that I am well, and that I am having a 
pleasant vacation where all that I have to 
do is to work and be kicked. Good-bye.’ 

“The next twenty-four hours were anxious 
ones for Jean. It was not until late the fol¬ 
lowing day that the prisoner was missed. 
On the morning of the second day the boy 
was delighted, upon hearing the buzz of an 
airplane, to discover that it was a French 
observation plane. About this time the 
French artillery opened up and great shells 
went screaming high over head. Jean could 
see the air observer making smoke signals 
to the gunners back there, and soon there 
came an explosion that shook the earth. 

“ ‘It is well. My Colonel received my let¬ 
ter and his shells have blown up an ammu- 

8 —Little Boy Heroes of France. 


LITTLE BOY HEROES OF FRANCE 


nition dump. He knows now that little 
Jean is a useful fool. Vive la France V he 
murmured under his breath. 

“Before long an explosion greater than 
the first told the lad that the main ammuni¬ 
tion dump had been located and blown up. 
His happiness was great. There was much 
excitement among the German officers. 
How the French had succeeded so well in 
locating these hidden ammunition dumps 
they could not understand, as before the 
close of that day two other smaller dumps 
were fired and blown up. Not alone this, 
but three hidden Hun bases in the forest 
were shelled by artillery and bombed by air¬ 
planes. 

“A week later another French prisoner es¬ 
caped, and with him went another message 
to the commanding officer of little Jean’s 
regiment, with the result that a few days 
later the Germans again suffered heavily 
from French artillery and bombing planes. 

“By now they began to realize that the 
French were getting accurate information 


114 


LITTLE SCOUT OF CAMBKAI WOOD 


from the German lines. Prisoners were 
watched, Jean was watched, hut not for long 
because he was such a thick-head that they 
did not credit him with having sense enough 
to do the clever work that had been accom¬ 
plished. Then, again, they laid most of 
their ill luck to the prisoners who had es¬ 
caped, and lines were drawn still more 
tightly. This for a time stopped the ac¬ 
curate work of the French guns and bomb¬ 
ing planes. 

“Finally, however, another prisoner es¬ 
caped, and his escape was followed in due 
time by more successful bombing, and this 
time the Germans had every one of their 
prisoners in this sector up before the intelli¬ 
gence officers, who threatened, if they failed 
to find the spy, to shoot all the prisoners. 
Once more they failed to secure the informa¬ 
tion they sought, nor did they shoot any 
prisoners, knowing very well that the 
French would retaliate by shooting as many 
German prisoners. 

“It was more difficult now for French 
115 


LITTLE BOY HEROES OF FRANCE 


prisoners to escape, because additional 
guards bad been put about the Hun prison 
pen, so little Jean possessed his soul in pa¬ 
tience and plodded methodically about his 
work, doing everything badly and earning 
the title ‘Dumb Ox’ from his captors, until 
finally one night only one guard was on duty 
from midnight until four in the morning. 
That night another prisoner made his es¬ 
cape, and next day vital spots back of the 
German lines were subjected to a storm of 
heavy shells and bombs, wiping many of 
them out of existence. 

“The Germans now knew to a certainty 
that there was a spy in the pen and they set 
to work methodically to apprehend him, but 
failed again. It was three weeks later, 
however, when there came another escape, 
but no shelling followed. By that sign little 
Jean knew that his plans had gone wrong 
and that this last messenger had failed to 
reach his destination. He knew, too, that 
he was in great danger, but he did not in the 
slightest change his expression nor his ways. 


116 


LITTLE SCOUT OF CAMBRAI WOOD 


“Then the end came suddenly. One night, 
well along toward morning, he was roughly 
dragged from his blanket and taken before 
a group of stern-faced officers. As he stood 
before them they gazed sternly at the lad, 
saying no word for a long time. Jean gave 
back their gaze in his accustomed stupid 
way. 

“ ‘So you are the spy, eh?’ demanded a 
captain finally. 

“‘Eh?’ answered Jean, blinking as if he 
did not comprehend the words. 

“ ‘Here,’ continued the officer, ‘is the evi¬ 
dence. Your messenger tore it up and 
threw away the pieces when he was cap¬ 
tured, but we have pieced it together. Not 
all of it is intelligible to us, but we have 
deciphered enough to satisfy us. It is 
signed Jean The Fool. A fine fool you are, 
but you shall no longer give information to 
the dogs over there. What have you to say?’ 

“Instead of saying anything Jean simply 
blinked, his lower jaw sagged and his tongue 
was stuck up to the roof of his mouth. It 


117 


LITTLE BOY HEROES OF FRANCE 


seemed almost impossible of belief that here 
was a brain so keen as to plan and execute 
escapes and give information to the enemy 
as Jean had done. 

“ ‘For this you know the penalty?’ 

“ ‘What has Jean done?’ questioned the 
lad, a puzzled expression now appearing on 
his face. 

“ ‘He has done enough. How many other 
spies are there out there in the pen?’ 

“ ‘Jean knows of no spies among the pris¬ 
oners; Jean knows little about anything.’ 

“ ‘He will know still less by sunrise,’ was 
the significant reply. ‘That is all. You 
will spy no more and we shall serve you as 
we do all such French dogs. Take him 
away.’ 

“This time the boy was taken to a dark, 
ill-smelling dugout and a guard was placed 
over him. What thoughts passed through 
his keen little mind none but himself ever 
knew, but Jean was a Frenchman and he 
was ready to face whatever fate was in store 
for him. 


118 


LITTLE SCOUT OF CAMBRAI WOOD 


“Shortly after daylight the little scout 
was taken from his prison dugout and, with 
a guard on either side of him, was conducted 
to an open space, where he was stood up 
against a tree. 

“A firing squad stood a short distance 
from him, leaning on their rifles, laughing 
and talking. They were there to end the 
life of a boy, but he was only a Frenchman 
and there was no mercy in their hearts. 
The captain who had questioned him a few 
hours before walked slowly over to the little 
Frenchman leaning against the tree. 

“ ‘Frenchman, when we are ready you are 
at liberty to run if you wish. It will be 
more sport for the firing squad to shoot you 
as they would a rabbit. I have no doubt 
they will enjoy it more than you will.’ 

“Jean drew himself up to his full height 
and with great dignity replied: 

“ ‘A Frenchman never runs away, Herr 
Captain.’ 

“The captain shrugged his shoulders. 
Just then several guards marched on the 

119 


LITTLE BOY HEROES OF FRANCE 


field with a group of French prisoners, some 
of them officers. These were lined up at 
one side about midway between the firing 
squad and the little French lad. The cap¬ 
tain turned to these. 

“ ‘Prisoners, this boy is a spy. He is a 
desperate character. He fooled us for a 
long time, but of course we caught him at 
last, and he is to be executed, as every des¬ 
picable Frenchman should be the moment 
he gets into our hands. Let it be a lesson 
to you lest you too share his fate.’ 

“There were black looks on the faces of 
the prisoners. 

“ ‘Have you anything you wish to say?’ 
questioned the captain, turning to the boy. 
‘You see I am kind, more kind than you or 
any of your race deserve.’ 

“ ‘Jean has much to say, but, as the saying 
can do no good, it were better left unsaid. 
I am ready.’ 

“The captain gave the signal and the men 
of the firing squad raised their rifles. All 
at once little Jean’s face lost its character- 


120 


LITTLE SCOUT OF CAMBRAI WOOD 


istic idiotic look, his eyes lighted up with a 
fire that none of those before him ever had 
seen there before and his whole countenance 
was transformed. 

“ ‘Fire !’ 

“ ‘Long live France!’ cried the shrill voice 
of the victim of German cruelty. The words 
were his last, for, as ‘France’ was still on his 
lips, his slender form fell forward and lay 
still. 

“Thus, my little friends, died a boy hero 
of France. He died for his country after 
serving her well, and in the little village 
where he was born and reared to-day there 
stands a crude monument which one day 
will give place to a finer one, on which has 
been carved the inscription: ‘To the Mem¬ 
ory of a Little Hero of France, Jean Fauvre, 
Who Died Gloriously That His Country 
Might Live.’ ” 


121 


CHAPTER VIII 




PIERRE THE PEPPER 


“There are thousands like Jean among 
the little boys of France/’ began Bomber 
Haynes when his young friends had gath¬ 
ered in the school yard on another occasion 
to listen to another story about the youthful 
heroes of France. “Each and every one of 
them is eager and willing to make any sacri¬ 
fice if by so doing they can serve their be¬ 
loved country in even a small way. 

“The story that I shall tell you to-day is 
about little Pierre who came to be known as 
Pierre the Pepper. Pierre had red hair, 
very red, and his temper was as fiery as his 
hair. He lived with an uncle and an aunt 
near the Lorraine frontier, where he went to 
school, his parents being peasant farmers 
further out in the country. 


122 




PIEEEE THE PEPPEE 


“When the war broke out little Pierre was 
filled with enthusiasm, and, though only 
fourteen, he was determined to fight for his 
country. Of course his parents, as well as 
his uncle and aunt, refused to listen to his 
appeals. 

“Then came the invasion, the day when 
the Germans swept the French back and 
took the village of Jumeau, where Pierre 
lived. The attack was a surprise, and the 
French were badly cut to pieces, for they had 
constituted only a small garrison force. 

“The Germans swept in, after routing the 
French, clearing the streets and capturing 
many men, some of whom they found in the 
houses of the villagers. Every house was 
searched, including the one in which Pierre 
lived, which was situated on the outer edge 
of the village to the north/ where the uncle 
worked a small plot of land. It was an ex¬ 
citing time, and Pierre was burning with in¬ 
dignation over the brutality shown by the 
Huns to the people of the village. 

“Pierre and his uncle and aunt were sit- 


123 


LITTLE BOY HEROES OF FRANCE 


ting in their home that evening, talking of 
the exciting events of the afternoon, when 
there came a tap at the kitchen door. The 
uncle opened the door, fully expecting to see 
a German standing there. 

“Pierre, not far behind the uncle, was 
peering at the stranger, first with a scowl on 
his youthful face, then with an expression of 
wonder. It was an aviator, dressed in his 
rubber suit, the knitted helmet still on his 
head, his goggles tipped up high on the fore¬ 
head. 

“ ‘Can you tell me where I am?’ he asked 
in pure French. 

“ ‘Who are you?’ demanded the uncle. 

“ ‘A flier, attached to the French army. 
Running out of gas I was obliged to come 
down about three kilometers north of here. 
I had been lost for more than two hours in 
the fog. Will it be possible for me to get 
some gas in this village?’ 

“ ‘You might ask the Boches for some,’ re¬ 
plied the uncle with irony in his tone. 

“ ‘The Boches took the town this after- 


124 


PIERRE THE PEPPER 


noon, my Frenchman/ added Pierre. ‘How 
did you get through the lines?’ 

“For a moment the flier was too amazed 
to speak. 

“ ‘I walked straight to the village without 
seeing a single Boche/ he finally answered. 
‘Where are they?’ 

“ ‘Everywhere/ returned the uncle. ‘They 
have been here and they are liable to be here 
again at any time.’ 

“The aviator pondered a moment, then 
said that he must get some petrol and get 
away, as he did not fancy letting a perfectly 
good fighting airplane fall into the hands of 
the Huns. Failing to get the fuel he de¬ 
clared that he must go back and destroy the 
machine, so that it might not be captured by 
the Germans. 

“ ‘I fear we cannot help you, but we will 
secrete you in the house for the night, and 
perhaps a way may be found for you to get 
away on the morrow/ offered the uncle. ‘I 
know of no petrol in the village.’ 

“ ‘Pierre knows where there is some/ in- 


125 


LITTLE BOY HEKOES OF FRANCE 


terjected the red-headed boy. ‘I know, for 
the French fliers occasionally made landings 
here and I used to watch them filling their 
tanks with petrol/ 

“ r Where ?’ demanded the birdman ea¬ 
gerly. ‘Lead me to it. You are a little 
patriot indeed/ 

“ ‘The stuff is buried in a farm shed where 
the owner keeps sheep in the winter, unless 
the French troops took it away with them, 
and I think they went away in too big a 
hurry for that. Pierre will go with you 
and help you,’ declared the boy resolutely. 
‘You and I will dispose of any sentries we 
meet, but you must let me go ahead and 
look for them. I know the land better than 
you do/ 

“ ‘Pierre, you must be careful,’ urged the 
boy’s aunt. 

“ ‘It is for France,’ answered the boy sim¬ 
ply. ‘They once had cans there by the 
storage place, but I don’t know whether 
there are any there now or not. We had 
better take a pail to carry the petrol in, in 

126 


PIERRE THE PEPPER 


case there should he no cans. I am ready, 
Monsieur.’ 

“They set out together, Pierre, before 
'leaving, halting in the kitchen, where he 
took a handful of red pepper from a can, and, 
carefully wrapping it in a piece of paper, 
deposited it in his pocket, while the French¬ 
man eyed him questioningly. 

“ ‘It is good for man and beast,’ observed 
the boy dryly. ‘I once used it to quiet a 
neighbor’s dog that always tried to bite me 
when I passed his yard. It cured the dog, 
and so will it cure any ugly Boche.’ 

“Pierre led the way, proceeding some 
little distance ahead of his companion, both 
moving with great caution. That there 
were Germans ahead of them as well as be¬ 
hind them, the boy was positive, but he did 
not know where they were, though he was 
proceeding as if the enemy were right in 
front of him, creeping along in a crouching 
position, every faculty on the alert. The 
birdman was going along in the same man¬ 
ner, some little distance behind Pierre. 


127 


LITTLE BOY HEROES OF FRANCE 


“‘Halt! Who goes?’ 

“Pierre jumped, as a soldier stepped from 
behind a tree and thrust a bayonet toward 
the little fellow. 

“ ‘Friend,’ answered Pierre after a few 
seconds of indecision. 

“ ‘No, you are French. Advance!’ replied 
the German sentry sternly. 

“ ‘Yes, but I am only a lad,’ pleaded 
Pierre, stepping slowly forward, and the 
sentry, observing that this was true, low¬ 
ered his rifle. 

“ ‘You cannot pass. Go back or I shall 
have to shoot you.’ 

“ ‘Oh, no, you will not. Pierre is not so 
easily disposed of. He too can fight. 
Pierre can fight you.’ 

“The sentry uttered a half grunting laugh. 

“ ‘You can fight? How?’ 

“ ‘Just like this,’ retorted the Pepper, 
hurling a handful of red pepper full into the 
face of the sentry. 

“The German uttered a yell and began 
dancing about rubbing his eyes, but the more 


128 


PIERRE THE PEPPER 


lie rubbed the more the stuff burned him. 
To add to his troubles, the sentry began to 
sneeze, his rifle dropped from his hands, and, 
throwing himself on the ground, he rolled 
over and over, crying out in his distress. 
The boy gazed at his victim with a brief ex¬ 
pression of regret on his face. 

“ ‘Come/ cried Pierre to the birdman. 
‘The Boche is well seasoned with pepper, and 
I have a rifle/ he added, snatching up the 
weapon, as the French flier came up. ‘We 
must hurry now.’ 

“ ‘First we will tie this fellow so he can¬ 
not get away and give the alarm, but be as 
quiet as you can. There will be more of 
them hereabouts. You are indeed a pep¬ 
pery enemy to meet.’ 

“The Frenchman tore up the German’s 
coat, and with the pieces bound the fellow 
hand and foot, then placed a gag in his 
mouth. 

“ ‘There, Pierre, I think he will be all 
right unless some of his kind should chance 
to discover him.’ Pierre nodded his under- 


9 —Little Boy Heroes of France. ^29 


LITTLE BOY HEROES OF FRANCE 


standing, and together the two started on, 
this time more rapidly than before, for each 
believed that they were outside of the Ger¬ 
man line of sentries, which, as a matter of 
fact, they were. This line was nearer to 
the village than Pierre had thought, which 
meant that the sheep shed where the gaso¬ 
line was stored was some distance outside 
of the German lines. 

“They reached the shed and the lad im¬ 
mediately began digging in a sheep rack, 
throwing out armfuls of straw, revealing in 
a few moments a galvanized tank several 
feet in length. The tank was locked with a 
padlock. Try as they would, they could not 
break it open. 

“ ‘I know how to get the lock off,’ an¬ 
nounced the aviator. Drawing his revolver 
he placed it against the lock and pulled the 
trigger. The report that followed was so 
loud that Pierre felt certain it would attract 
the attention of the Germans. While the 
birdman was opening the tank, the boy 
found two cans hidden in another sheep rack. 


130 


PIERRE THE PEPPER 


“These they quickly filled, then dipped the 
pail in and filled that, after which they hur¬ 
ried from the sheep shed, the aviator now 
leading the way, for Pierre did not know 
where the airplane had landed. 

“ ‘This is a great find, and I thank you, my 
dear little Frenchman/ said the flier. ‘You 
have saved the machine as well as its pilot. 
I hope you will not get into any trouble over 
this . 5 

“ ‘If he does, Pierre will throw pepper in 
the eyes of the Boches,’ returned the lad 
resolutely. ‘If you are afraid for him, why 
do you not take Pierre with you and put him 
in the army?’ 

“ ‘Not at your age, mon enfant . That 
would be impossible. You are serving your 
country better at home than you could in 
the army, and you are doing your full 
duty. If all at home did as well this war 
would be the quicker won. There, beyond 
that growth of trees, is where we shall find 
the machine.’ 

“The pair approached the place with the 
131 


LITTLE BOY HEROES OF FRANCE 


utmost caution. Pierre could see the air¬ 
plane faintly outlined, and his pulses 
throbbed at thought of the glory of being 
able to fly above the clouds in it. How he 
wished it some day might be his privilege 
to do so. 

“ ‘All clear/ announced the aviator, after 
completing a circuit of the place on one 
side. 

“ ‘All clear/ added Pierre, who had beat 
up the bushes on the other side. 

“The aviator climbed up to the tank, first 
placing a can of gasoline in the fuselage 
or car, whence Pierre helped him to lift it 
up. The boy was standing up in the car on 
the pilot’s seat, while the pilot was pouring 
the oil into the tank. The can emptied, the 
pilot got down and brought up the second 
can of oil. He had just finished this and 
Pierre was waiting while the aviator stepped 
down to bring up the pail, when a shot off 
toward the village caused them to stop and 
listen. 

“Another shot, followed by a volley near 
132 


PIERRE THE PEPPER 


at hand, and the whistle of bullets over their 
heads, stirred the birdman into instant ac¬ 
tion. 

“ ‘The Boches!’ he cried. ‘Quick! Jump 
over into the back seat. You must go with 
me. I can’t leave you here.’ 

“Springing to the propeller the pilot 
forced it backwards a few inches and then 
spun it the other way. The motors started 
with a bang and the machine moved slowly 
ahead. It had gone but a few feet when the 
pilot leaped in. 

“ ‘Hold on tightly/ he shouted back. 
‘Can’t stop to strap you in.’ 

“ ‘Yes, I will/ Pierre shouted back, but his 
voice was lost in the roar of the motors, as 
the airplane shot ahead. The ground was 
rough and the machine careened until the 
lad thought it surely must tip over, then the 
roughness suddenly ceased and the plane 
was floating above ground as lightly as a 
feather floats in the still summer air. 

“Such a thrill as Pierre felt, he had never 
known before. He did not heed the bullets 


133 


LITTLE BOY HEROES OF FRANCE 


from the German rifles that were being fired 
at them, all, fortunately, going wide of the 
mark and finally ceasing altogether as the 
airplane, twisting and turning, left them far 
to the rear. They were off, climbing higher 
and higher with the moments, until there 
was no earth to be seen, save as here and 
there a point of light suddenly appeared and 
almost as quickly disappeared in the black 
void below. They flew on and on, the boy 
shivering, for the air was very chill up where 
they were. Finally a combination of col¬ 
ored lights grew out of the darkness ahead 
of and below them, and the pilot headed for 
those lights. After a little he shut off his 
motors and pointed the nose of the plane 
sharply downward. Pierre gripped both 
sides of the fuselage and braced his feet. He 
was a little dizzy, but the sensation was 
glorious. 

“Down and down they went, dropping at 
a terrific speed. Then suddenly the ma¬ 
chine was brought to an even keel, the power 
was put on, and a few seconds later the 


134 


PIERRE THE PEPPER 


wheels touched the ground, sending a jolt 
through the airplane that bounced the lad 
on his seat. The airplane soon came to .a 
slow stop and the aviator turned to see how 
it fared with his passenger. 

“ Well?’ he questioned. 

“ ‘Please do it again/ answered the red¬ 
headed boy. 

“ ‘I think you have had quite enough for 
one night. I must now go and report to my 
chief. You may come with me.’ 

“ ‘At last Pierre is with the army/ 
chuckled the lad. 

“To his commanding officer the pilot told 
the story of how the brave Pierre had as¬ 
sisted him and made it possible to save the 
pilot and machine from the Germans. 
Pierre was praised by the commanding 
officer, and later made much of by the fliers, 
whose mess he attended next morning. He 
determined then and there to be a flier, and 
during the rest of the time that he remained 
with the army he stayed with the flying 
corps. It was a month later, when the 


135 


LITTLE BOY HEROES OF FRANCE 


French took the village where he lived, that 
he was returned to his home, where his ex¬ 
ploits already were known, for French 
aviators had dropped messages there to let 
his people know what he had done and where 
he was. 

“The lad was thanked and commended by 
the French government for his patriotic 
services, which made him a proud and happy 
boy. Little Pierre still has hopes of flying 
above the clouds again, not as a passenger, 
but as a pilot, flying for his country.” 


136 


CHAPTER IX 


THE LITTLE RUNNER OF VERDUN 


“I shall tell you to-day of the despatch 
bearer and how he works. These are among 
the bravest of the men who fight with the 
armies of the Allies/’ said Bomber Haynes 
on another occasion. 

a These men, as perhaps you know, carry 
messages to and fro during battle before the 
telephone lines are laid, and in many in¬ 
stances after the telephone wires are shot to 
pieces after having been laid. Some des¬ 
patch bearers travel by motor cycle while 
others run on foot, usually in pairs, so that, 
if one is killed or wounded, the other may 
take up his work and go on with the message. 
Sounds cheerful, doesn’t it? 

“It is about one of these brave runners 
that I shall tell you a story to-day. In this 

137 




LITTLE BOY HEROES OF FRANCE 


instance the runner was a boy—that is, he 
eventually became a runner or despatch 
bearer. Raoul was his name. 

“Through the town in which Raoul lived, 
soldiers were passing day and night toward 
Verdun, where some of the fiercest battles 
of the war were being fought. And day and 
night, with infrequent periods of sleep, the 
little fellow was out on the street to give 
what aid and comfort he could to the poilus 
of his beloved France. He took water to 
them, he carried their packs, he gathered 
food from the villagers and distributed it 
among those who were lagging from weari¬ 
ness, and all such things. Raoul even en¬ 
listed in his services a dozen other boys, 
whom he formed into a company that oper¬ 
ated under his orders. 

“One day he turned over the command of 
his company of twelve to another boy of the 
village, and trailed out after dark behind a 
regiment of French soldiers. His presence 
as a stranger was not discovered until the 
next morning, and then Raoul had a bad few 


138 


THE LITTLE EUNNEB OF VEEDUN 


minutes with the commander of the company 
to which he had attached himself. Fortu¬ 
nately for him one of the under-officers of 
that same company chanced to belong to the 
village where the boy lived, and vouched for 
him, at the same time telling the captain in 
command about the services little Kaoul had 
rendered to the men passing through the 
village. 

“ ‘What would you do here? You are too 
young to fight, too young to join the army in 
any capacity.’ 

“ ‘My Captain, as I served the poilus at 
home so I can do at the front, only to better 
purjDose. Give me a chance, let me stay 
with you for a week, and if by that time 
Baoul has not proved his worth, send him 
home. Please. I have neither father nor 
mother.’ 

“ ‘Lieutenant Noyon, will you be respon¬ 
sible for this boy, if you think he can be use¬ 
ful to us?’ 

“ ‘It will be a pleasure to do so. I know 
his worth, Captain.’ 


139 


LITTLE BOY HEROES OF FRANCE 


“That settled it so far as RaouPs connec¬ 
tion with the regiment was concerned. He 
began at once, under the direction of his 
friend the lieutenant, carrying messages, 
which familiarized him with the faces and 
names of all the officers and many of the 
men. One of the men of the motor cycle 
corps, taking an interest in the keen-witted 
little fellow, taught him to ride a motor 
cycle, which the lad picked up in a few hours 
so that he could handle the machine almost 
as well as the officer himself. At intervals 
he perfected himself in this, and one day 
was permitted to use a machine to carry a 
message to a point about ten miles to the 
rear of the regiment. 

“Few of the officers knew of this new ac¬ 
complishment of little Raoul, for he was al¬ 
ways on foot when he carried messages for 
them. It was less than a week after he had 
joined the regiment that his organization 
went into battle. The boy was supposed to 
remain behind in the base camp of the regi¬ 
ment, but such a course did not appeal to 


140 


THE LITTLE RUNNER OF YERDUN 


Raoul, so lie went along with his fellows, 
keeping as much out of sight as possible. 

“Many thousands were engaged in that 
battle, for it was one of the big battles of the 
war. All day it waged, men were falling on 
all sides, and such scenes as little Raoul wit¬ 
nessed that day were enough to make the 
stoutest hearts grow faint. He did his part, 
not in fighting, but in helping those who did 
fight, helping the wounded back, assisting 
in giving first aid to soldiers who were too 
seriously wounded to be led back to dress¬ 
ing stations, and in carrying messages and 
orders, all in apparent utter disregard of his 
own peril. As it was, Raoul had many nar¬ 
row escapes, as his bullet-shredded clothing 
gave mute evidence. 

“On one of his trips to the rear he was 
obliged to remain away for nearly two 
hours, and when he returned he was unable 
to find his regiment. No one seemed able to 
tell him where they had gone, though he 
learned that they had last been seen charg¬ 
ing to the northeast toward a wood, where 


141 


LITTLE BOY HEROES OF FRANCE 


they had been sent to rout out several nests 
of machine gunners. 

“ ‘I must find them/ muttered the lad. 
‘Some of our brave fellows may need the as¬ 
sistance of little Raoul.’ 

“Taking a roundabout course, he went on 
his way until he came to a place where he 
saw that the enemy had surrounded a force 
that was firing from shell holes and hastily- 
dug trenches. He could not see the men in 
the shell holes, but he could see the men who 
were firing at them, and they were Germans. 

“ ‘My brave fellows are surrounded/ he 
groaned, ‘and the enemy is in force. I must 
get to them.’ He secreted himself in a 
nearby shell hole, watching the fight from 
some distance away, waiting for night, 
knowing that he could not hope to get 
through by daylight. 

“The hours dragged, but little Raoul, with 
the patience of an Indian, lay watching and 
waiting. He already had picked out the 
spot through which he proposed to go when 
darkness had settled down. 


142 


THE LITTLE RUNNER OF VERDUN 


“Night came, and, as soon as the darkness 
was deep enough, he emerged from the shell 
hole and ran forward in a crouching posi¬ 
tion until he was near the enemy line, which 
he was able to locate by the flashes of their 
guns. The men of his company were shoot¬ 
ing very slowly, he discovered, but the 
reason for this he did not know, unless they 
were trying to make every bullet find a Hun 
mark. 

“Now extreme caution was necessary, and 
the boy, flat on his stomach, was wriggling 
along a foot at a time, and sometimes less. 
The journey was long, for he had to go some 
distance further than a straight course 
would have carried him, in order to avoid 
the danger spots in the German line. All 
this time he was under fire, but, though the 
bullets were snipping up the dirt all about 
him, he remained untouched. 

“Raoul passed the Germans safely and 
was headed directly for the men of his own 
organization. He was now under fire from 
both sides, which made his peril great, and 


143 


LITTLE BOY TIEBOES OF FRANCE 


lie still had to crawl much further before he 
could come within hailing distance of his 
own men. 

“It was about this time that keen eyes 
made out the crawling, creeping figure ap¬ 
proaching the French force, and a machine 
gun was promptly turned on him, the bullets 
striking just in front of him, filling his eyes 
and mouth with dirt. 

“ ‘Don’t shoot,’ he called. ‘I am a French¬ 
man.’ 

“The fire was quickly elevated and then 
Raoul raised himself on all fours and ran 
with all speed, never stopping until he 
toppled head over heels into a shell hole. 

“The lad fell into rough hands, for many 
still believed this was a German trick of 
some sort. 

“ ‘Who are you?’ demanded a stern voice. 

“ ‘Raoul, the runner,’ he gasped. ‘Let go 
of my throat.’ 

“ ‘Who—wha—at? Raoul?’ exclaimed a 
familiar voice, which the boy instantly rec¬ 
ognized as belonging to Lieutenant Noyon. 


144 


THE LITTLE RUNNER OF VERDUN 


“ ‘Yes, my Lieutenant. It is I.’ 

“ ‘Boy, how did you get here?’ 

“ ‘I crawled most of the way. Well did I 
know that my officer would need something 
that Raoul could get for him.’ 

“ ‘We do indeed need something, or shall 
before many hours, but it is nothing that 
you can get for us. Tell me, how is the 
battle going?’ 

“ ‘Very warm. What is it you are in need 
of, my Lieutenant?’ 

“ ‘Ammunition. Unless we get some or 
can get help we shall not be able to hold out 
beyond midday to-morrow.’ 

“ ‘Is all your company here, sir?’ 

“ ‘Here and in adjoining shell holes, what 
is left of them. More than half of my brave 
fellows are dead.’ 

“ ‘How has it fared with the rest of the 
regiment?’ 

“ ‘I think they got away. G Company 
was sent up here to drive out a nest of ma¬ 
chine gunners, but we were cut off, as I 
feared we might be, and here we are. You 

10 —Little Boy Heroes of France. 


LITTLE BOY HEROES OF FRANCE 


heard nothing about sending us relief, did 
you?’ 

“ ‘No, my Lieutenant. I do not think they 
have missed you, and they probably will not 
so long as the battle is raging so furiously/ 

“While talking, Raoul had been thinking 
hard, and he already had a plan in mind. 

“ ‘My Officer/ he said, ‘Raoul will go back 
and carry the tidings of your plight to the 
commander.’ 

“ ‘No, no, no/ cried the lieutenant. ‘It 
will be sure death. I cannot permit it/ 

“ ‘Is it not better that a boy should offer 
his life than that half a company of French 
soldiers should be sacrificed?’ he insisted. 

“ ‘That is not the point. The conditions 
make it impossible for me to assent. You 
are a brave lad, the bravest of the brave, but 
do you think my noble fellows would ap¬ 
prove of my letting you go back to certain 
death?’ 

“ ‘It is not for them to say. It is for you, 
my Lieutenant. It is certain death for you 
to remain here and fight it out, if you are 

146 


THE LITTLE RUNNER OF VERDUN 


short of ammunition. What kind of ammu¬ 
nition are you most in need of?’ 

“For the machine guns. We shall be 
short for the rifles too, but, had we sufficient 
for the machine guns, we might be able to 
hold the Boches off for another day, and per¬ 
haps longer. My men will need food, but 
we can do without that. Ammunition is 
what we must have.’ 

“ ‘And ammunition you shall have,’ mur¬ 
mured the brave lad, but in too low a voice 
for the lieutenant to hear. 

“ ‘You will now lie down close up against 
the front of the shell hole where you will be 
safe, and get some rest. We shall go on 
fighting. I wish you had not come here. It 
was wrong of you, Raoul.’ 

“ ‘It was my place to be here with my be¬ 
loved poilus,’ answered the boy stoutly. 
‘You have not yet told me to go back.’ 

“ ‘Nor shalUk I forbid it.’ 

“Raoul crawled over to the front side of 
the shell hole, and came back a few moments 
later to tell Lieutenant Noyon something 


147 


LITTLE BOY HEROES OF FRANCE 


about the position of the German machine 
guns, thereby enabling that officer to direct 
his fire to better advantage. After a time 
the men in the shell hole forgot all about 
little Raoul, who lay huddled up, apparently 
fast asleep. 

“ ‘Call the child here/ commanded the 
lieutenant finally. ‘He may be able to give 
some further information about those fel¬ 
lows over there.’ 

“The soldier who had received the order 
reported a moment later that the little fel¬ 
low was not in the shell hole and that none 
of the men knew where he was. 

“The lieutenant groaned. 

“ ‘He has disobeyed my orders and started 
back to get help for us. Let it be an inspira¬ 
tion to us to fight on to the death.’ 

“A cheer answered the plea of the leader 
of the little band. In the meantime little 
Raoul, who, unobserved, had crawled from 
the shell hole, was creeping over the ground 
on his perilous journey for his brave poilus 
who had determined to make their last 


148 


THE LITTLE RUNNER OF VERDUN 


stand. Having lost the location of the place 
through which he had passed the Hun lines, 
he now took a more northerly course in an 
effort to avoid them altogether. 

“Suddenly a heavy body hurled itself 
upon him and crushed the little lad to the 
ground. Something hit him on the head at 
the same time and a darkness, deeper than 
that of the night, overwhelmed him. Raoul 
had been discovered by a prowling scout out 
in No Man’s Land and captured with an ease 
that he would not have believed possible. 

“The German, observing that his captive 
was limp and apparently lifeless, and ob¬ 
serving, at the same time, that it was a boy, 
decided that it was his duty to take the cap¬ 
tive, dead or alive, back to his commanding 
officer, as it was unusual to capture an 
enemy boy. The captain would be glad to 
learn that the French were using boys in 
their army, which would show that their 
man-power was running low. So he swung 
the little fellow over his shoulder and 
started back. Raoul was as limp as a bag 


149 


LITTLE BOY HEEOES OF FRANCE 


of meal, but was not much of a burden for 
the muscular German to carry. 

“The captor strode along toward the dug- 
out where he knew he would find his com¬ 
manding officer. He sent in word that 
he wished to report to his captain with a 
prisoner, a boy whom he had captured out 
between the lines. While waiting for per¬ 
mission to enter, the Hun threw the little 
fellow down on the ground, hunched his shoul¬ 
ders and adjusted his equipment so that he 
might enter the presence of his officer in a 
condition that might not call for a rebuke. 

“A messenger appeared later, bidding the 
scout to enter. 

“The Hun turned and stooped over with 
outstretched hands to gather up his little 
captive, but his hands touched only the torn- 
up earth. He groped frantically, but with¬ 
out finding that which he sought. Raoul 
was not there. He had disappeared as ut¬ 
terly as if the earth had opened and swal¬ 
lowed him down. The German was frantic. 
He began to fire his rifle at shadows, and 

150 


THE LITTLE RUNNER OF VERDUN 


continued to do so until a sergeant stopped 
Mm and dragged him before the captain, 
where he passed a few bad minutes. 

“While all this was going on, out there on 
the field back of the German position, a few 
hundred yards away, lay little Raoul, hold¬ 
ing both hands to his dizzy head, struggling 
with all his might to collect himself that he 
might go on with his mission. 

“The jolting he got upon being thrown to 
the ground at the entrance to the dugout had 
brought the lad back to consciousness. The 
instant the scout’s back was turned he sum¬ 
moned all his strength and rolled away a few 
paces, then, getting on all fours, he went 
hopping away until he collapsed on the 
ground, face down. There were tears in his 
eyes, but not a moan escaped the plucky boy. 

“ ‘Raoul fooled the stupid Boche!’ he mut¬ 
tered. 

“A few moments showed him that there 
was no pursuit at hand, so he pulled himself 
together and ran along on all fours again. 
He continued in this manner until he 


151 


LITTLE BOY HEROES OF FRANCE 


plunged head first into a shell hole, which 
served to shake him up and put new life into 
him. Raoul scrambled out and started 
away toward his own lines at a trot, with 
every faculty on the alert for Boches. He 
knew there were plenty of them about, so he 
moved rapidly but with caution. Haste 
was necessary if he would save the brave 
fellows of G- Company. 

“He continued on until daylight; then he 
made a disheartening discovery. He was 
now between the battle lines and the battle 
was raging furiously. 

“He ran now, bending low, while sharp¬ 
shooters on the German line tried their best 
to tumble him over. A bullet caught the 
boy in one shoulder and spun him around. 
Raoul fell on his face but was up in a flash, 
and, shaking an angry fist in the direction 
of the German lines, ran on toward the goal 
that was now plainly in sight. 

“The French, like the Germans, had dug 
themselves in and the artillery on both sides 
was blazing away. Big shells and small 


152 


THE LITTLE RUNNER OF VERDUN 


shells were falling in No Man’s Land and 
exploding with tremendous crashes. The 
air seemed full of dirt and rubbish that 
these explosions threw up, some of them 
half burying the plucky little lad, but Raoul, 
in each instance, dug himself out and took 
up his run again with a pluck that knew no 
weakening. 

“The wound in the boy’s shoulder was 
bleeding profusely, but he did not realize 
that he had been wounded, so bent was his 
mind on the task of saving the beloved poilus 
of Gr Company, out there battling for their 
lives. 

“ ‘But I will fool them; it is not for Raoul 
to die yet, with his work only just begun.’ 

“The fire, apparently directed at him, was 
getting pretty hot, even for a little soldier 
who was so little afraid of it as was Raoul. 
He crouched lower as he ran, making signals 
to his own lines when he was near enough to 
do so, to indicate that it was a friend who 
was hurrying toward them. There were a 
few in the French lines who saw and knew 


153 


LITTLE BOY HEROES OF FRANCE 


the slender, boyish figure. On their part 
they expected every second to see him 
riddled with shrapnel or machine-gun bul¬ 
lets. Several bullets scratched his flesh 
when he was almost at the edge of the shal¬ 
low trench, and as he went over the parapet, 
a piece of shrapnel raked his skull and sent 
him spraivling into the trench. 

“For a few moments Raoul lay stunned, 
then struggled to his feet. 

“ ‘The colonel, quick !’ he urged. 

“ ‘What is this?’ demanded the officer 
whom Raoul sought. The colonel was up 
among his men, encouraging, directing, and 
stiffening their courage with his presence. 
He knew Raoul and therefore was ready to 
listen to what the lad had to say. 

“ ‘My colonel, G Company is cut off. They 
have been fighting all night, and when I left 
more than half their men were down.’ 

“ ‘All Frenchmen must fight to-day,’ an¬ 
swered the colonel. ‘Look how these brave 
fellows are doing their duty.’ 

“ ‘Yes, my Colonel, but the men of G Corn- 


154 


THE LITTLE RUNNER OF VERDUN 


pany are short of ammunition. By midday 
they will be firing their last shots and then 
—you know the rest, my Colonel. Oh, 
please, please send them the things to fight 
with/ 

“‘Where, where ?’ demanded the com¬ 
manding officer, now thoroughly aroused to 
the need for quick action. ‘Where are they?’ 

“ ‘Some kilometers to the northwest, bear¬ 
ing on a small forest that comes out into the 
open like a wedge/ 

“ ‘I know the location. So that is where 
they are? Have they dug in?’ 

“ ‘In some places. In others they are in 
shell craters and fighting, oh, so gloriously, 
my Colonel/ 

“The officer called an orderly and gave 
him a few terse directions. 

“ ‘Can you not send a flying bomber to en¬ 
tertain the Boches while our men are on the 
way?’ urged Raoul. 

“ ‘The idea is excellent, but our machines 
are otherwise engaged/ 

Raoul groaned. 


155 


LITTLE BOY HEROES OF FRANCE 


“ ‘It will take hours to reach them and by 
that time all that will be left of Gr Company 
will be a heap of dead. My Colonel, may I 
make a suggestion?’ 

“ ‘Certainly.’ 

“ ‘Send a corps of motor cycles with side 
cars carrying machine guns, and let them 
entertain the Boches until the infantry can 
get there. I will lead them and show the 
way, my Colonel.’ 

“ ‘My son, no motor cycles could cross the 
field here. They would be shelled out of 
existence before they had covered half the 
distance. How would you proceed in those 
circumstances?’ 

“ ‘My Colonel, I should take the Luxem¬ 
burg road until near Lunaville, there I 
should strike east by a little north until I 
came to the crossroads that are there. From 
that point, screened by some fields of young 
trees, I should drive down, unseen by the 
Boches who are attacking G Company, and 
take them on their flank with an enfilading 
fire.’ 


156 


THE LITTLE RUNNER OF VERDUN 


“The colonel frowned, then laughed. 

“ ‘You are a remarkable child. May I 
ask how you chance to know about Luxem¬ 
burg, Lunaville, the crossroads and the for¬ 
est of small trees?’ 

“ ‘My Colonel, I have studied the maps of 
the officers, and I have been over part of the 
ground.’ 

“ ‘So? Did you go out with G Company?’ 

“ ‘No, my Colonel. I went out in seach of 
them and went through the German lines in 
the dark of night. Lieutenant Noyon for¬ 
bade my trying to come back here, fearing 
that I might be killed. I ran away while he 
was not looking. I beg of you, my Colonel, 
to send him aid by the motor cycles and 
permit me to lead them.’ 

“To Raoul’s surprise, the colonel drew the 
lad to him and kissed him on both cheeks, 
much to the little fellow’s embarrassment. 

“ ‘My noble boy!’ he exclaimed. ‘One day 
you will be an officer—if you live that long,’ 
he added, his face wrinkling into a smile. 
‘You are wounded, you must have your 


157 


LITTLE BOY HEROES OF FRANCE 


wounds dressed. In the meantime I will 
act upon your advice and send a motor corps 
with machine guns.’ 

“ ‘Please, please, my Colonel, let me go 
with them to show the way. Think what 
will happen should the men lose their way. 
They have ammunition enough only to last 
until noon. Haste, haste, my Colonel!’ 

“ ‘Yes, you shall go. Such devotion to 
country demands the gratifying of any wish 
you may make. Still, you do not know how 
to operate a motor cycle, and the man who 
occupies the side car must handle the ma¬ 
chine gun.’ 

“ ‘Ah, my Colonel, I can drive, I have 
driven. I can drive almost as skilfully as 
the best man in the corps, and I can fight, 
too.’ 

“ ‘Is there anything that you cannot do 
well?’ wondered the colonel. 

“ ‘Many things, my Colonel. I cannot 
command an army.’ 

“ ‘You will do that some day, no fear about 
that,’ answered the colonel, laughingly. 

158 


THE LITTLE RUNNER OF VERDUN 


‘Lieutenant Claudon will be in command, 
and you shall guide the squadron until 
within range and then you will fall to the 
rear and keep out of the fight, or at least 
keep as far away as your zeal will permit 
you to do. In no circumstances must you 
handle a gun or fight. The French do not 
permit their children to bear arms against 
an enemy. You understand, my son, this is 
a command from your superior officer.’ 

“Raoul saluted and was off in a series of 
leaps and bounds that soon carried him out 
of sight of the colonel. 

“Raoul was soon at the station of the 
motor cycle corps, where he found Lieuten¬ 
ant Claudon feverishly preparing for the 
dash to the rescue of what was left of G- 
Company. The boy saluted and reported for 
duty, and was informed by the lieutenant that 
he was to guide the party to the scene, hav¬ 
ing received such orders from the colonel. 

“ ‘You will proceed at a fast pace, dis¬ 
playing a courier’s flag, which will give you 
right of way.’ 


159 


LITTLE BOY HEROES OF FRANCE 


“ Thank you, sir. May I ask if you have 
ammunition for Gr Company?’ 

“ ‘For them and for us. I have assigned 
a good man to ride with you, and he will 
handle the machine gun if necessary. You 
are to follow his directions regarding your 
maneuvers, and you are to act solely as 
guide. Do you understand?’ 

“ ‘Your orders shall he obeyed,’ was the 
brief answer of the little soldier. 

“The members of the motor cycle corps 
were in the habit of riding after fast pace¬ 
makers, but they followed a man that day 
who was in a hurry—a little man who cared 
not for danger, whose whole soul and energy 
were bent on reaching his companions who 
were battling for their lives. 

“The motor cycles went off with a roar, 
first Raoul and his gunner, followed closely 
by the lieutenant and the men. 

“ ‘Can you stand being shaken up?’ ques¬ 
tioned Raoul, leaning over to the soldier in 
the side car. 

“ ‘All you can give me,’ answered the sol- 
160 



ROUL’S COMPANION OPENED UP 






































































THE LITTLE RUNNER OF VERDUN 


dier. ‘Do not get too far ahead of the lieu¬ 
tenant just yet. Wait until we near the 
place, then we will show him a clean pair of 
heels/ The man accompanied his words 
with a wink which Raoul understood and ap¬ 
preciated. 

“ ‘I wish we had a clear road. I’d show 
them a hundred kilometers or better an 
hour. Maybe Raoul will get the chance be¬ 
fore we have gone far, but, my poilu, if the 
side car ever gets separated you will land 
over in the North Sea or maybe all the way 
over in England.’ 

“It was the soldier’s opportunity to grin. 

“Behind them trailed fifty cars, each with 
a side car and a machine gun, in addition to 
which each driver, with the exception of 
Raoul, carried a rifle strapped over his back. 

“The road was full of traffic, heavy trucks, 
motor cars, artillery, supply wagons, troops 
moving back and forth, and confusion 
reigned from one end of the great highway 
to the other. Besides this, shells were fall¬ 
ing on both sides of the road, here and there 

11 —Little Boy Heroes of France. 161 


LITTLE BOY HEROES OF FRANCE 


landing on the road and tearing great gaps 
in it. Little Raoul fairly dove through the 
explosion of one of those shells, with shrap¬ 
nel, dirt and stones falling all about him. 
The cars following were held up for a 
moment until the shower caused by the ex¬ 
plosion had fallen. 

“Eventually they left the broad road and 
struck off on another highway that was in 
worse condition than the one they had just 
left. This, however, did not cause Raoul to 
lessen his speed. If anything, he increased 
it, and they soon came to the crossroads of 
which he had spoken to his colonel. From 
that point on the way lay over fields, shell- 
torn and full of small obstructions, any one 
of which, if struck by a rapidly moving car, 
would hurl the vehicle into the air. In fact 
the car driven by Raoul was in the air a good 
part of the time—that is, its wheels were off 
the ground and the soldier in the side car 
was clinging to the sides of it to keep from 
being thrown out. 

“Reaching the small forest of young trees, 
162 


THE LITTLE RUNNER OF VERDUN 


the lieutenant signalled his orders to the fol¬ 
lowing cars, intending to overhaul Raoul 
and give him directions before they arrived 
at the scene of operations, which they 
reached almost ere the lieutenant realized 
it, for the lad had covered the ground with 
incredible speed. 

“ There, nearest to the wedge of wood, are 
our brave fellows/ he told the soldier in the 
side car. ‘Orders, my poilu? Shall we 
dash down and give the Roches the first 
dose?’ 

“ ‘Yes, until the lieutenant gives us fur¬ 
ther orders. The Roche line does not ap¬ 
pear to be a very long one.’ 

“ ‘No, they are bunched, but there are 
plenty of them there, as you will find when 
they discover us. There they go!’ 

“The Germans had turned a machine gun 
on the leading motor cycle. Raoul’s com¬ 
panion swung his own weapon toward the 
enemy and opened up. Raoul approached 
the Hun line on an oblique course while his 
companion pumped lead at the Germans. 

163 


LITTLE BOY HEROES OF FRANCE 


To the rear of these two the familiar rat-tat- 
tat of machine-gun fire began. Now the 
lieutenant, putting on a burst of speed, took 
the lead, and the whole line of swiftly mov¬ 
ing motor cycles swept the German trenches. 
Nearly all the fire of the Germans was now 
directed at the motor cycles, the men of G 
Company firing only scatteringly and at 
long intervals. Raoul understood the rea¬ 
son for this—their ammunition was ex¬ 
hausted, or practically so, and all that was 
left them was to wait for the rescue now at 
hand. 

“The attack of the motor cycle corps was 
furious and fast. That was the way this 
corps did things, but not a machine was 
handled more skilfully, more rapidly, than 
the one driven by little Raoul. They raked 
the Hun trenches with a killing fire. Back 
and forth went the cycles, swinging out over 
the field in wide curves and back again to 
sting, darting in and out, making it difficult 
for the Huns to get in telling shots. 

“A little of this went a long way with the 

164 


THE LITTLE RUNNER OF VERDUN 


cowardly Bodies, and in a short time they 
bolted from their trenches and started run¬ 
ning for the woods. But they had not reck¬ 
oned on the mood of the men of G- Company, 
who sprang from their shell holes and 
charged at the enemy with bayonets fixed. 
Here the machine guns on the motor cycles 
again got in their deadly work. A few min¬ 
utes of this double attack was quite suffi¬ 
cient for the Germans, and they threw down 
their arms, raising their hands above their 
heads and surrendered to the little remnant 
of G Company. 

“Motor cycles were quickly on the ground, 
their guns trained on the Germans, ready to 
resume firing in case of treachery, for which 
the Huns are noted. 

“Lieutenant Noyon, wounded, pale and ex¬ 
hausted, staggered to the car driven by little 
Raoul and, throwing his arms about the 
little fellow’s neck, kissed him almost rev¬ 
erently. 

“ ‘It is to you, my noble Raoul, that we 
owe our lives.’ 


165 


LITTLE BOY HEROES OF FRANCE 


“ ‘It is to you, my Lieutenant, that Raoul 
owes the great privilege of serving his coun¬ 
try/ answered the lad in a tone of grateful 
appreciation. 

“At the direction of the lieutenant in com¬ 
mand of the motor corps, the wounded men 
of G Company were taken into the side cars, 
the soldiers who had come to the rescue step¬ 
ping out to assist the able men of G Com¬ 
pany in herding the prisoners and driving 
them back to the French lines. The pris¬ 
oners were compelled to carry the machine 
guns that they had been operating, followed 
by half a dozen motor cycles, whose machine 
guns were kept trained on them all the way. 

“It was night before the prisoners and 
their escorts arrived at the French lines, 
where the story of little Raoul’s brave acts 
had preceded them, for Raoul had remained 
back with the prisoners. He wished to have 
the privilege of escorting them in, looking 
upon them, as he did, as his own prisoners. 
This privilege was readily given to him. 

“That night little Raoul stood before his 


166 


THE LITTLE BUNKER OF VERDUN 


colonel, a proud, happy boy. His pride and 
satisfaction shone in his eyes, his position 
being at attention as he listened to the brief 
words of praise from his commanding 
officer. 

“ ‘Raoul,’ said the colonel, ‘it is such sol¬ 
diers as you that France depends upon now 
and for the future. Despite your lack of 
years I have decided that you shall wear the 
uniform of your country’s army. Further 
than that, I name you a corporal. While I 
cannot permit you to fight, you will continue 
to act as a despatch bearer and be connected 
with the headquarters staff. 

“ ‘Raoul, worthy son of France, I salute 
you.’ The colonel raised a hand to the visor 
of his cap, and Raoul brought his own right 
hand up in a snappy salute. 

“It was at this point that the entire regi¬ 
ment, that had been a witness to the brief 
ceremony, broke out into cheers that carried 
to the German lines far over on the other 
side of the shell-torn field. 

“Little Raoul served his country nobly, 

167 


LITTLE BOY HEROES OF FRANCE 


and by this time undoubtedly has another 
stripe on his sleeve. That, my young 
friends, is but a leaf torn from the life of 
one Little Boy Hero of France,” concluded 
Bomber Haynes. 


CHAPTER X 


PHILIPPE, THE ARGONNE HERO 


The fall was well nigh spent and the days 
out of doors for the boys, who had become so 
interested in Bomber Haynes’ stories, were 
few. 

“I happen to know of my own knowledge 
about the story I shall tell you to-day,” said 
Sergeant Bomber Haynes late one afternoon 
after the boys had had a particularly strenu¬ 
ous drill and potato battle. “This little 
fellow’s name was Philippe, fourteen years 
old, slender and wiry, a boy who had lived 
among the great trees most of his young life, 

168 




PHILIPPE, THE ARGONNE HERO 


who knew the birds and the small animals 
as few men know them. 

“Philippe’s home was at the edge of the 
great Argonne Forest, where our country¬ 
men and the French fought so desperately, 
but the war had driven the boy and his par¬ 
ents from home. His father was a soldier 
and his mother was living with an aunt in a 
little village some distance back of the 
French lines, where Philippe had been stay¬ 
ing up to the time the incidents I am about 
to relate occurred. Philippe, weary of the 
village and eager to serve his country, in¬ 
duced his mother to let him go out with a 
company of village territorials who were 
that night marching to the front. He was 
confident he could be of service to them. 

“That night the French territorials 
marched until nearly daybreak, Philippe 
trudging along and keeping up with their 
steady swing, now and then running to make 
up for distance lost through their taking 
longer steps than he was able to take, for 
his legs were not so long as theirs. Philippe 


169 


LITTLE BOY HEROES OF FRANCE 


had to keep pretty much in the background 
lest an officer discover and send him back 
home, which was not at all according to the 
little fellow’s plans. 

“All of that day they marched, and just 
after dark that same night made camp with 
a part of the army that was facing the great 
forest. Shells were bursting at intervals, 
behind, in and on all sides of the French 
lines, but no one appeared to pay much at¬ 
tention to them. 

“That night he thought things over and 
decided upon the manner in which he could 
best serve his country. He had heard two 
officers talking of the plans of that particu¬ 
lar part of the army, to which he listened, un¬ 
observed, until he was in possession of their 
general plan of campaign. This plan was 
no secret, though the details of how it was to 
be carried out, and when, were secrets that 
none except the General Staff knew about. 
Artillery was even then shelling the Ar- 
gonne Forest, where Germans were sup¬ 
posed to be, and French airships had been 


170 


PHILIPPE, THE ARGONNE HERO 


flying over the tops of the tall trees, their 
observers peering down to find out what was 
going on within the enemy lines. They did 
not find out much, for the forest of Argonne 
is very dense, but not so dense now as it was 
before the two armies fought for it. Fel¬ 
lows, there is a lot of all right good timber 
lying on the ground in that forest now; tim¬ 
ber that was not felled with the woodman’s 
axe, either. 

“On the morning following Philippe’s ar¬ 
rival he presented himself to the colonel of 
the regimeht to which his friends, the terri¬ 
torials, belonged. 

“ ‘My Colonel,’ he said, ‘I am Philippe of 
the territorials, with whom I came here. I 
wish to offer my services to the army—I 
wish to join the army.’ 

“The colonel surveyed the slender lad with 
a smile. 

“ ‘What can you do?’ he questioned. 

“ ‘I can guide the soldiers, my Colonel. 
Philippe knows many ways and by-ways in 
the forest that the soldier knows not of, and 


171 


LITTLE BOY HEROES OF FRANCE 


can tell the poilus many things that will be 
of great value to them.’ 

“ ‘What is this you say about the forest V 
demanded the colonel. ‘What forest ?’ 

“ ‘The great forest—the Argonne Forest/ 

“ ‘What do you know of it?’ 

“ ‘Many things. I have lived in it and 
near it all my life. I can climb trees, too, 
and do many things that the poilus cannot.’ 

“ ‘Did you ever see a military map?’ asked 
the colonel. 

“Philippe shook his head. The colonel 
spread a map before him and placed his 
finger on a double line that extended for 
some distance. 

“ ‘Do you know what this is?’ 

“ ‘No, my Colonel, but Philippe knows 
where it is,’ replied the lad after studying 
the double lines for a moment. ‘It is the 
Serpents’ Gulley, where many things hide 
from the light of day, and where one day our 
brave poilus may try to hide and where Fritz 
will slaughter them.’ 

“Colonel Lafond grew instantly inter- 
172 


PHILIPPE, THE ARGONNE HERO 


ested. It was a ravine that he had pointed 
out, and the boy, without understanding the 
meaning of the lines, had identified the spot 
and knew what it was. The colonel drew 
up a camp stool and bade the little fellow 
sit down beside him. Together they went 
over the map with great care, the officer ask¬ 
ing questions, Philippe answering them, 
pointing out, here and there, corrections 
that should be made, and giving the colonel 
information that opened up possibilities 
that had not before occurred to him. The 
colonel sent for an orderly and told him that 
he wished a man, who was not afraid to go 
through a barrage, to carry a message to a 
captain in command of the unit nearest to 
the forest. 

“ ‘My Colonel, let Philippe go.’ 

“ ‘It is a perilous journey, my son.’ 

“ ‘No more so for me than for another. 
Besides, I can more easily be spared than 
can a soldier. Show me on the map, please, 
where the message is to be delivered?’ 

“The colonel placed a finger at a point 


173 


LITTLE BOY HEROES OF FRANCE 


where the forest seemed to reach out beyond 
the line of the higher trees. ‘This is the 
point/ he said. 

“ ‘Very good, my Colonel, I know the way. 
I will take the message.’ 

“The officer smiled at the boy’s eagerness, 
and, after a brief reflection, wrote a code 
message to the captain in command of the 
position. The information conveyed to the 
captain was based on something that 
Philippe had told the colonel about the lay 
of the land over there, and, after some brief 
directions, the little fellow was permitted to 
go on this his first mission for his country. 

“Philippe had been provided with a pass 
to show in case he was held up on the way, 
but the only things that detained him were 
exploding shells and rifle fire. He was dis¬ 
covered by snipers almost the moment he ap¬ 
peared out on the field, and these did their 
best to put an end to him, but the boy was 
wary and skilful in wriggling to the right 
or to the left to change his course, which 
bothered the snipers. Here and there a 


174 


PHILIPPE, THE ARGONNE HERO 


trench was used by him to cover his prog¬ 
ress, then a stretch of grass, and so on until 
he was within a few hundred yards of his 
destination. 

“The little Frenchman’s advance was 
watched from his own lines with strained 
interest, for the watchers did not believe he 
would be able to make his objective, but he 
did, and to the amazement of those in that 
advanced trench he tumbled into it amid 
little geysers of dirt that spurted up about 
him from the bullets of machine guns that 
were seeking him out. 

“ ‘How did you get here?’ demanded the 
captain in command at that point, when 
Philippe had been brought to his dugout. 

“ ‘Like a baby, I crept, and like a baby I 
shall make my way back, if I have to go 
back.’ 

“ ‘Colonel Lafond says you know this for¬ 
est well,’ said the officer. 

“ ‘Yes, my Captain.’ 

“ ‘Do you think you can get some infor¬ 
mation for me without losing your own life 


175 


LITTLE BOY HEROES OF FRANCE 


and getting us into trouble at tbe same 
time?’ 

“ ‘Yes, my Captain.’ 

“ ‘What I wish you to find out is where the 
road from the east is located, over which the 
Germans are hauling their batteries into the 
forest. I don’t know how you are going to 
get this information, for three men have 
failed in the attempt already. They have 
not come back, my son,’ he added gravely. 

“Philippe pointed to the map of the local¬ 
ity that lay before the officer. 

“ ‘Here are the roads that lead into the 
forest from the eastward. The upper and 
lower ones are but trails that the hunters 
take. This one is the main road, and the 
only one over which heavy guns could be 
drawn,’ Philippe informed him. 

“ ‘Our information is that it is the lower 
one, my son.’ 

“ ‘Your information is not correct, my 
Captain. It is the middle one. Your air¬ 
men should have told you that, unless the 
Boches have covered the road so that it can- 


176 


PHILIPPE, THE ARGOKNE HERO 


not be seen. It is there, and you can order 
artillery to fire upon it with the certainty 
that you are going to hit a Boche. Philippe 
will look further for you to-night.’ 

“The officer nodded thoughtfully, not giv¬ 
ing particular heed to the lad’s assertion 
that he would look further that night. It 
was Philippe’s purpose to go into the forest, 
but had the captain understood the boy’s 
plan, to go deep into the forest, right into the 
German lines, he would have forbidden it. 
Men who had tried it never came back, hence 
what could a boy expect to accomplish? 

“All the rest of the day Philippe devoted 
to watching the forest, observing the firing, 
consulting the map, now and then turning 
his impish face up to answer a question, or 
to reply to some teasing remark of a poilu. 
He was a queer boy, a child of nature, and, 
like all who have lived close to nature, 
Philippe was reticent to a point of bashful¬ 
ness in all things but the war and his be¬ 
loved France. From certain indications 
that came from observation of the forest be- 


12 —Little Boy Heroes of France. 


LITTLE BOY HEROES OF FRANCE 


fore them, the little French boy was able to 
make his plans for the night, but these he 
confided to no one because he feared he 
would not be permitted to carry out the 
plans he had laid for himself. 

“With night the firing died down, but the 
artillery back of the French lines and the 
German big guns in the forest began to send 
out wave after wave of rolling thunder. 
Under cover of the noise and the darkness, 
and with a chunk of black bread in his 
pocket, little Philippe slipped over the para¬ 
pet and skulked away from his own lines 
unobserved, even by his own sentries. For 
a time he crept along parallel with the outer 
edge of the forest, then, turning, went 
straight in, every few moments flattening 
himself, with an ear to the ground to listen. 
He was soon lost in the depths of the forest. 

“A serpent wriggling over the ground 
would rustle the grass and leaves under¬ 
neath him more than did little Philippe. 
His progress was as near noiseless as it was 
possible to be. 


178 


PHILIPPE, THE ARGONNE HERO 


“Philippe had not penetrated very far 
into the forest before he found what he was 
looking for—Boches. That is, he heard 
their voices. As he expected w r ould be the 
case, he discovered a machine-gun nest, and 
then set to work to find other machine-gun 
units and fix their positions in his mind. 
Now and then a pocket flashlight, in the 
hands of a German, revealed the positions 
of men stationed in shallow pits, these latter 
being covered with green boughs, and in 
some cases with small trees that had been 
cut down and laid over the machine-gun po¬ 
sitions. 

“ ‘Nests of death/ muttered the boy. 

“His every step was a step of peril, and he 
knew that at any moment he might find him¬ 
self in the grip of a prowling German, 
though Philippe believed that the Boches, 
secure in the thought that they were safe 
from discovery, would not be so very alert, 
and in this he was right. He met with no 
interference and roamed almost at will the 
entire length of the position until he had 

179 


LITTLE BOY HEROES OF FRANCE 


nearly every detail of it firmly fixed in his 
mind. 

“It was late in the night when he returned 
to the machine-gun nest first discovered, 
having found that quite a distance lay be¬ 
tween it and the nearest one to the south, 
which, he told himself, was very bad judg¬ 
ment on the part of the Germans. Getting 
out of the forest was easier than entering it, 
for he now knew where to be on the lookout 
for sentries, and managed to get away with¬ 
out a slip or sound that might reveal his 
presence. 

“Reaching the open he flattened himself 
on the ground and crawled along a foot or so 
at a time, for great things now depended 
upon his movements. 

“At last the trench of the French first 
line loomed faintly before him, and, though 
he did not know it, keen eyes had been 
observing the little figure creeping along 
the ground, and a dozen rifles were trained 
on it. 

“A sentry challenged in a low voice. 

180 


PHILIPPE, THE ARGONNE HERO 


“ ‘Philippe/ answered tlie boy. ‘I must • 
see your commanding officer at once/ 

“A band reached out and dragged the 
little fellow into the trench, whence he was 
conducted to the dugout occupied by the 
officer in command, to whom he briefly re¬ 
lated all that he had discovered. 

“ ‘Well done,’ exclaimed the officer after 
listening with interest to what Philippe had 
to say. ‘Put down on the map here, as 
nearly as you can, the location of the nest 
you say is an isolated one/ This Philippe 
did, making a circle with a pencil to indicate 
the machine-gun pits, and dots to show 
where the sentries might be looked for. 

“ ‘Now, my son, what would you suggest 
as the best way to take this whole outfit V 
asked the captain smilingly. 

“Philippe was prompt in his reply and 
rather amazed the officer by his suggestions. 

“ ‘One company of our poilus should be 
able to do it/ said the boy. ‘First, six good 
scouts should go out armed with revolvers 
and heavy clubs, if you have such things. I 

181 


LITTLE BOY HEROES OF FRANCE 


can show them where to find the sentries. 
With their clubs they can put the sentries to 
sleep, and the rest will be easy. While the 
scouts are doing this the company should go 
to the north and come down to the point I 
have marked on the map, along the edge of 
the forest. There is nothing north of that 
place that will interfere. When the com¬ 
pany reaches that point I can show them the 
way in.’ 

“ ‘My boy, one day you will be a general/ 
cried the captain enthusiastically. 

“ ‘Philippe fears the war will not last long 
enough for that. He at least hopes it may 
not. Let’s go P 

“ ‘Patience, my son. I must first obtain 
permission from my colonel, and wait until 
we are relieved. That will take but a short 
time. Lie down on the blankets over there 
and rest. You have earned it.’ 

“ ‘Thank you, I will. I have still much 
work to do before daylight.’ 

“Philippe curled up on the blankets, and, 
with an arm thrown over his head to shut 


182 


PHILIPPE, THE ARGONNE HERO 


out the flickering light of the captain’s 
candle, went to sleep. He did not awaken 
until he felt the touch of the officer’s hand on 
his head, whereupon the little fellow was on 
his feet in an instant. 

“ ‘Is it the zero hour, my Captain?’ 

“ ‘Yes. All is ready, and the company is 
on its way to the rendezvous suggested by 
you. You will accompany me and the six 
men, taking the more direct route. The 
colonel has warmly complimented you for 
your zeal and cleverness, and, while he does 
not believe we can accomplish all that you 
hope for, he says the chance of reward is 
worth the effort.’ 

“ ‘We will fool the colonel,’ answered the 
lad soberly. 

“The seven men, with the boy of the impish 
face, picked their way cautiously to the edge 
of the forest, where Philippe bade them lie 
down and wait for him while he once more 
entered the forest to make certain that there 
had been no change in the positions of the 
sentries. 


183 


LITTLE BOY HEROES OF FRANCE 


“ ‘All is well/ he said, when, half an hour 
later, he suddenly appeared again. 

“The captain gave the six scouts the order 
as suggested by Philippe and without a slip 
every one of the German sentries was cap¬ 
tured, each after a sound whack on his head, 
being bound, and later carried to the edge of 
the forest, while the little Frenchman was 
once more making his way around the ma¬ 
chine-gun nest. He returned in time to 
meet his company, which, after a few in¬ 
structions from their commanding officer, 
he led into the forest in single file. 

“Slowly and cautiously, with only here 
and there a whispered word of direction, the 
company silently surrounded the machine- 
gun nest. 

“ ‘Draw in and cover them/ ordered the 
officer. ‘Pass the word along. Bombers 
stand by to bomb the Boches out, but not a 
shot is to be fired or a bomb thrown until I 
fire my pistol. Ready V 

“The captain thereupon called out to the 
Germans that the entire machine-gun nest 


184 


PHILIPPE, THE ARGONNE HERO 


was surrounded, and demanded the sur¬ 
render of the outfit. He was obliged to 
shout to make himself heard, for the forest 
was resounding with crashes of exploding 
shells that the French artillery was firing in 
its search for the road over which the Ger¬ 
mans were moving troops and supplies. 

“A shot was fired from one of the em¬ 
placements, and the bullet whistled very 
close to the head of Philippe. The bombers, 
however, taking the shot as a signal, hurled 
their bombs, just as the first faint light of 
the coming dawn filtered through the trees 
and made the men visible to each other. 

“Cries of ‘Kamerad’ were heard all along 
the line, and men with uplifted hands began 
coming from the machine-gun pits. Their 
hands went higher when they saw rifles 
pointed at them from every direction. The 
numbers that tumbled out amazed the 
French captain, who had no idea that there 
were so many men in the machine-gun nest, 
though it extended for a considerable dis¬ 
tance along the edge of the forest. 

185 


LITTLE BOY HEROES OF FRANCE 


“The prisoners were quickly formed by 
twos, while a search was made in the pits 
for stragglers, of whom there were only 
about a dozen rounded up. The machine 
guns were then removed. Thus was accom¬ 
plished a brilliant exploit without the loss 
of a man on either side, for not a German 
had been killed by the bombers, who had 
purposely thrown their missiles of death so 
they would not drop into the nests. 

“The prisoners and the booty were started 
for the French lines on the same course 
taken by the French company when it 
marched in, and the whole outfit arrived 
within the French lines some time later in 
perfect safety. 

“You may well believe that Philippe re¬ 
ceived a warm welcome when he got back. 
Like another boy about whom you have 
heard, he was permitted to join the army 
and serve in the intelligence department, 
where he distinguished himself further. 

“Later developments proved that the boy 
had also been right about the roads in the 


186 


PHILIPPE, THE ARGONNE HERO 


forest, especially tlie one over which the 
Boches had been bringing up their supplies, 
which in due time was shelled by the French 
with great effect. 

“Do you not think, fellows, that Philippe 
was worthy of the honor bestowed upon 
him?” questioned Bomber Haynes. 

“ ‘Yes,’ shouted the boys. 

“ ‘Little Philippe may have been little, but 
he was big,’ added Abe Skinner. 


187 


CHAPTEK XI 


CONCLUSION 


It was more than a week later when the 
boys next saw Bomber Haynes. The ser¬ 
geant sent word that he would be at the 
schoolhouse about five o’clock in the after¬ 
noon that day and requested that all the 
boys be there as he had some news of im¬ 
portance to tell them. 

They were all there, ready with a shout of 
welcome and a rush for the big bomber who 
had so endeared himself to them and who 
had given them so many entertaining hours. 
They observed, with the keen eyes of youth, 
that the sergeant’s face was sad, though his 
eyes were bright and sparkling. 

“Are you going to tell us a sad story to¬ 
day?” questioned Abe. 

“What makes you think I am going to 


188 




CONCLUSION 


tell you a weepy story, Abe?” answered the 
sergeant. 

“Because you look as if you wanted to cry 
already.” 

Sergeant Haynes laughed heartily. 

“There will be no story to-day, Abe. No 
more stories from Bomber Haynes now, and 
perhaps never,” he added with a note of sad¬ 
ness in his tone. “I am going away, fellows. 
This is the last time you will see me, for I 
am leaving at eight o’clock this evening.” 

“To—to—for Fra—” stammered Abe. 

“Yes, Abe, for France. I am ordered to 
rejoin my regiment. My play-spell is over 
and I am glad except for one thing—I do not 
want to leave you boys. I wish I could 
take you all along with me and show you 
the real thing, show you so you might see, 
with your own eyes, what wonderful fellows 
these French boys are. That, of course, is 
impossible, but it is possible that before this 
war is ended some of you may be in it. We 
have not won the war yet, but we are going 
to. I may never come back, but I am going 

189 


LITTLE BOY HEROES OF FRANCE 


over to help put the cruel Germans where 
they can do no more harm to the world. If 
I do come back after the war, depend upon 
it I shall come here to see you and to greet 
you, at least, for you fellows won’t care to 
hear any of my stories by then.” 

“Yes we will,” shouted the boys. 

“It is fine of you to say so. There is but 
one more thing to say before I bid you good¬ 
bye. Try, each and every one of you, to 
build up in your hearts the spirit and the 
love of country that make these little 
Frenchmen of whom I have told you stand 
out among the world’s greatest heroes. Be 
willing to make any sacrifice for the great¬ 
est and noblest country of them all, be true 
to your country, be true to yourselves, and 
the rest will take care of itself. Fellows, 
good-bye. I’ll throw a bomb for each of 
you, and I’ll say when I throw them, This 
is for Abe; take this, you Boche! This is 
for Joe; take this, you Boche!’ and so on. 
Once more, good-bye.” 

Bomber Haynes drew himself up to atten- 


190 


CONCLUSION 


tion and saluted. Every boy was on his 
feet, every pair of heels clicked together, 
and, as one, they brought their right hands 
to the visors of their caps and returned the 
salute, whereupon Sergeant Bomber Haynes 
turned and strode away, not trusting him¬ 
self to look back at these splendid young 
American boys of whom he had grown so 
fond and whom he felt deep down in his 
heart he might never see again. 


The End 


191 













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